The Wilds 2024

Photo Album

Lauri took an Uber to our house Friday because her car was in the shop. She got to our house at 230 and we got packed into the van. I brought my computer to work in the car. We made it pretty far before stopping at Wendys. Lauri got some dinner; I was holding out for local pizza. It took us just over 3 hours, and we made it to Caldwell, Ohio. We checked in to the Comfort Inn and Suites. We got unpacked, and then headed into "town". The first pizza place we stopped at had nowhere to sit. We tried Wallys instead. There was still not really seating, but they did have a couple of picnic tables outside. We ordered pizza, bread, and Lauri got a salad. We hung out at the picnic table (I got a couple of the chairs out of our van). The night weather was really great. We talked some, and I read some of The Watchers. The pizza was ok, the salad not great. The pepperoni bread was good though. I ate most of that. We stopped at Subway so I could get the foot-long cookie, and a Coke. On the way back I accidentally took us to the first pizza place somehow. But that was ok, because the city is not super big.

Back at the hotel, David and I hung out at the hot tub for a bit. We met a lady from South Dakota. I said "oh, so you are one of the 4." But she didn't think that was funny. After the hot tub, I took a shower and we went to bed around 10:30p. We got up at 8a and went to breakfast. It was pretty good. They even had biscuits and gravy, although I found it a little tasteless. There was a waffle maker, and those were pretty good. Also croissants and bagels, eggs and bacon. After breakfast we went to Dollar General so I could get some Coke. We got a couple of other snacks, and David bought clips to keep the hotel curtains closed. When we got back to the hotel, we played a game that David had brought with him. Then we headed to Wolf Run park. We tried the 1 mile trail, but it was too hilly and I was a little afraid one of us would fall. David's surgery was less than 6 weeks ago.,

After the trail, we went to the beach and just sat looking at the lake and reading (David finished the pizza). We were there about an hour. I called the Wilds. They said not to bother coming early for our tour, as there really isn't anything else to do when you are not on tour. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and Lauri got some strawberries. We went back to the hotel - I had my bagels that I had stolen and a bunch of cookies. We headed towards the Wilds at 330 (our tour was at 5 and we were supposed to be there 30 mins early). We had directions and a map, but our GPS took us all the way there. We were there a little before 4p. We got the shuttle from the parking lot. There were people on our shuttle that were supposed to be on the 4p tour. What a bunch of dumb-asses. I hope they lost their money. We got to the snack bar / gift shop at maybe 415. We hung out for a while - dinner was to be at 5p. It was a baked potato bar, some fruit, and cookies as big as your head. Water, lemonade, and iced tea were our beverage choices.

We loaded into the tour truck right around 6p. There were only 8 in our truck (we were taking the better tour where you were supposed to get close to the animals). I have lots of pictures and videos from this part. We got to feed rhinos (my hand was in their mouth). A lot of the rhinos had babies with them. We also fed giraffes, and their heads were basically in our truck. We saw the wild dogs get fed; they were so excited. We also saw the cheetahs get fed. One of them turned over on their back just like a housecat. It was adorable. My favorite was the ostriches. They weren't looking to get fed - they are just curious. They came right up to us. Our guide said they would have pecked us if we didn't stand up. We also had a camel follow us looking for food. One of them ran towards the food - a running camel is pretty funny to see.

Our driver took us down to the parking lot. Getting back to the hotel was a little bit of an adventure. We had absolutely no signal. But we tried following our printed directions backwards. David did great - no wrong turns. Back at the hotel, David and I went to the hot tub again for a bit. Then bed, breakfast the next day at the hotel, and back home. It was a great trip.

Here are the animals we saw:
African Painted Dog; Bactrian Camel, Bactrian Deer; Banteng (cow), Cheetah, Dhole (fox), Eland (deer), Fringe-eared oryx (cow w big horns); Giraffe; greater One-Horned Rhino; Grevy's Zebra; Ostrich; Pere David's Deer; Persian Onager (horse); Przewalski's Wild Horse; Scimitar-horned oryx (cow); Sichian Taken; Southern White Rhino

Videos: