sprocket i/o

Desperate for something we could do together over the weekend, Dallas came up with the idea of checking out the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain. It’s about a 2-hour drive from Atlanta, through some pretty rural areas. I think we were both expecting something similar to our childhood memories of Lion Country Safari in South Florida. Visiting Lion Country Safari as a youngster with my grandparents is one of the few memories I still have from elementary school.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot for Wild Animal Safari though, and saw the banged up minivans painted in zebra-stripe (for rent), I realized that this experience might be a little less impressive than expected. The tickets were $15.95 for an all-day driving pass through the park, including a walking-only section of the park. Dallas was shooting with the 18-200mm VR lens, and I had the 105mm F/2.8 and 50-500mm F5.6-6. lens. I spent most of my time however trying to navigate the car in and out of ruts to either pass people or let others pass by. The traffic was pretty heavy, and in fact, one of the rental vans overheated and was stuck on the side of the road, with it’s radiator steam wafting through the air.

Though the park has a giraffe, some ligers, a small heard of zebra, and a rhinoceros or two, most of the good stuff is hidden behind cages, unlike Lion Country Safari. This made photography a bit more difficult. The three things the park has an awful lot of however are deer, cattle, and turtles (in the lake). If you look at my photo album, you will see what I mean.

Throughout the experience, I think we realized that Wild Animal Safari is more of a drive-thru petting-park than a zoo. Some of the visitors were a bit rude, pegging animals with food, and honking to get animals out of the way. The administration of the park doesn’t really try to push the scientific or learning aspects of the wildlife, save for giving a bus tour. The real kicker was the “Baby Goats for Sale”. That’s when it really hit me that this is not a zoo. It’s like the McDonalds equivalent.

In the end, it was worth visiting the place. We got some great photos, and had a wonderful time exploring the neighboring towns of Pine Mountain and Warm Springs, Georgia. We got to checkout one of the roads I’ve marked down on Google Earth as being a good motorcycle road, Highway 190 through Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park. There were some beautiful views from it. Definitely worth visiting on a motorcycle if you are out that way.

Warm Springs is definitely worth stopping by. Not only is it where FDR hung out and subsequently died, but they have a very nice downtown complete with little shops and home-made ice-cream.