We have declared our Fridays to be Field Trip Friday for several years now. We try to do some sort of field trip every Friday, or most of them anyway. Since today is our one month full-timeiversary, we decided to celebrate by getting back into our Field Trip Friday routine. We didn’t want to go to any of the expensive, touristy spots, like Ripley’s Aquarium (which we’ve already been to in Gatlinburg anyway) nor were we interested in any of the other tourist traps; but Elijah and I both love zoos and aquariums so we went searching to see what was around. I googled and found there was a zoo called “Waccatee Zoo” right here in Myrtle Beach. Their website was minimal and cheesy and I couldn’t really find any reviews about them, so I called yesterday just to make sure they were actually open. Indeed they were, so we planned that as our main event for today, figuring it would be small, but okay with that.
We honestly weren’t really expecting much, and to say we were pleasantly surprised would be a major understatement.
Doesn’t look like much going in. Just a cute old-timey entrance
The bison had a huge field to roam
I liked the fact that most of the animals had very large habitat areas
Look at the rack on this guy!
That hare is trying to escape!
“Hey, what is a zebu anyway?” (You may recognize that if you’ve ever been into Veggie Tales.) I had no idea that there was really such a thing as a zebu!
We started singing the song (again, if you aren’t a Veggie Tales fan, you are probably clueless right now. But trust me… It’s a cute song!) and we were both freaking out that they had not one, but two real zebu at this zoo.
Then, this one (zebu #2) CHARGED US! He literally bashed his entire head with all of his body weight right into the fence trying to kill us both! That scared the begeebees out of both of us. After I calmed down, and after HE calmed down, I took this picture of him staring us down. FREAKY!
Then we have the llama story. This guy spit at us. We were on a boardwalk and he was down below and on the other side of the fence, but he clearly didn’t like us… At all. After we passed the chain link fence was blocked by wood so we couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see us. I said to Elijah, “wouldn’t that be freaky if he jumped over the fence to get us?” At that very second, he literally JUMPED UP at us from the other side of the fence so high that half of his entire body was above the fence. Let’s just say we screamed… and ran! That was a demon llama!
There were egrets everywhere!
The trees were full of migrating egrets
The zoo borders the intracoastal and this portion of it was called the Waccamaw River. Very swampy.
This Artic fox did NOT like Elijah. At all. If Elijah moved, he would move away from him. He was staring him down, but he wouldn’t even look at me!
There are extensive nature paths with picnic benches throughout. I was very impressed with the amount of land and wilderness we had access to. It felt like we walked for miles.
Another path that led to this fenced boardwalk area which meandered all along the swampy river..
These guys didn’t like us either. They were all staring at us like we were their next meal. Now that I reflect back, none of the animals seemed to like us… Hmmmmm
No, he’s not dead. Just trying to stick his head in the sand. Such an ostrich!
Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!
Beautiful swamp.
There were peacocks everywhere.
This baboon was trying desperately to communicate with me. I think he wanted out.
It turns out that this zoo consists of 550 acres of land with tons of nature paths meandering through it. The animals have huge habitats, with a few exceptions. I didn’t like the lions habitat, nor the habitat they had for the Bengal tigers but I spoke with one of the owners about it and she said they had a larger habitat behind their “cages” that they are let out into frequently. She said the bears were born there and are very happy. I would have liked to see them have a more realistic habitat, but hopefully the area we saw them in was the exception rather than the rule.
After the zoo we had lunch at Chipotle and then walked the mall, wrapped up with Elijah getting a new book to read at Books-A-Million. We had a full, fun day, yet were surprised at how happy we were to return back “home” to our Exodus.
I can’t believe it’s only been a month. It feels like home and like it’s been home for much longer than a month! Life is good.
