Day 18 –-Wed.—7/1: Wild life Safari, drive to Mt. Hood, Northern Oregon

 Today we drove north from Grants Pass to Mt. Hood.  Along the way, we stopped at Wildlife Safari.   It’s great!  We drove our car through a road and there were many animals that came right up to our car window, such as buffalo, deer, ostriches, emus, geese, and others.  We also drove right next to 2 awesome, huge, playing grizzly bears in a pond (they were behind a fence, but only about 20 feet away from us), a lion and her new cub, elephants, hippos, zebras, etc.  Our favorite parts were the grizzlies playing just out our window and the 20+ cutest little baby emus (like ostriches).  We also got to hand feed several different kinds of deer but the best was hand feeding ostriches and emus.  They are really tall, prehistoric-looking and aggressive and with their huge beaks, they peck the food right out of your hand.  At first, Sam tried feeding one and got a bit scared and rolled up the window really quickly.  Ryan also was especially disturbed and scared of the emus—as you can see in the attached picture.  But then, as usual, brave Andrea reached over and fed him a few times to show us how.  After that, we all were strong enough to hand feed them.  It was intimidating but fun.  We also got to hand feed various species of deer.  We all loved feeding the animals.  Well, except perhaps Ryan J.  After driving through that part of the park, we then walked to the petting zoo and saw other cute animals.  And all 4 of us rode on a camel.  Ryan wanted to do it again but we had to continue our drive north.  Camels are very uncomfortable to ride on!  We couldn’t imagine having to ride on one for a long distance like they do in the Middle East.  We then drove on to Mt. Hood National Forest.  We were really impressed seeing the snowcapped-Mt. Hood rise above the forest as we drove up to our campground.  We have another beautiful, forested campsite.

Sarah feeding deer

2 huge grizzlies playing very close by

Ryan feeding deer

Scary emu staring.  They are very intimidating.

Ryan really did NOT like these animals with their heads in the window eating from mom!

Sarah and Ryan riding a camel.

Andrea doing her Rose Queen wave imitation on a camel.

Our campsite at Mt. Hood Village RV Park.  Beautiful forest.