Well just like Ian and I had a fun day out together with just the two of us, a short time later it was time for Alli and I to go out and have a great day! We'd talked about a few ideas, including going to Disney World and maybe the Animal Kingdom. But after seeing the things Ian got to do, she revised her list.
Alli - I want to pet a porcupine!
Joe - Did you see they have other things you can meet? Sloths, capybara?
Alli - Capybara! I want to pet one!
Joe - More than a porcupine?
Alli - I don't know...
On the way, Alli and I sang along to the Wish soundtrack from the new Disney movie. She also kept herself entertained with the hidden pictures books she got with Theresa on her Mommy-Daughter day.
Here we are! Just like with Ian a couple days before.
Gotta get checked in!
After getting our wristbands, we looked around the gift shop. Oh my, she's found a pig. One of her favorite animals.
Wow, a real alligator! Do we need one of those for the RV Alli?
A whole armful of capybara!
We've got a little bit of time before we need to show up for our animal encounter, so let's explore! That is a big gator!
Who do we have here?
A kangaroo!
At 11:30 there is a gator feeding show!
That squirrel is not so smart I'm thinking.
Hand feeding a few of the gators on the land. They also had a rope-line that carried chicken pieces to the middle of the water where gators jumped (and mostly missed) the dangling meat.
It's noon! Let's go check in for our animal encounter!
Meet Taylor! She's our animal encounter expert!
Which one did Alli pick?
And even better, it's just us on the animal encounter!
And instead of corn niblets, Stella is getting to eat grapes today.
Stella is a good porcupine. Very gentle.
Doesn't mind being petted.
With breath that smells like pancakes.
Scratching her underneath her armpits.
Green Bean isn't getting any attention. Sorry Green Bean.
A few minutes over our allotted 15, but it's time to say goodbye.
Spike, Stella's partner, is a bit shy. He doesn't like to come out.
And he's a little perturbed because he's got all his quills up.
Spike is checking to see if we have any of those grapes left...
Sorry Spike. Alli did get to give him a quick pet. Something Ian didn't get to do.
Well that was a lot of fun! Off we went to the petting zoo part of Wild Florida where Alli would find one of her favorites. Pigs!
Oh hello.
And goats too.
Alli had such a tough time deciding between porcupines and capybara, and when do you really get the chance to do both. So let's do both!
Porcupine Encounter Pt 1
Porcupine Encounter Pt 2
Right at 2pm we checked in with Morgan who took us over to see three capybara!
There's Theodore, Frankie, and Telula (TT).
Theodore has a bump on his nose that is like an oil gland that helps him spread his scent marks. He's also the most skittish of the group.
Do they like hugs? Frankie is the dominant female of the group.
Neck scratches. Morgan said they're just like giant coconut dogs.
They did a cute little chirping noise when they were happy, and we were getting a lot of chirps.
We went WAY over our 15 minutes, just feeding and playing with the capybara. Thank you Morgan!
She's all smiles now!
After we were done, the capybara got their regular meal. A peacock decided some of that looked tasty, before getting chased off.
Back at the petting zoo, those two baby goats from 2 days ago are big enough to get petted now!
They're so little and fluffy.
And curious too!
Goodbye pigs!
Hope to see you again soon!
How special!...Daddy-daughter day now! Big brother really influenced little sis here :-) Wild Florida was such a great experience for Alli (and Ian)...one-on-one petting time with a porcupine and capybara (like Morgan's "coconut dog" description)! Think Stella is a "breakfast" porcupine...pancake breath to go along with the maple syrup breath :-) Those pigs are HUGE...such cute baby goats so soft and friendly...think that squirrel was daring the gators! A strawberry-banana-coconut smoothie sounds delicious and refreshing...yummy way to start off the day. EOM
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