Once baseball gets started it is not very often that we find ourselves with a free Saturday but a few weeks ago we had a few hour stretch on a Saturday so we decided to go and check out a Tiger Sanctuary that we heard about that is only a few miles from our house. We actually heard about it from a guy that Ryan works with. He lives right across the road from it and he wakes up to the lions roar every morning. I think that would be pretty cool. Lions roars are pretty awesome sounding, way better than an obnoxious beep from an alarm or rooster crow. Not that either of those wake me up every morning either I’m just saying that seems like a very invigorating, get up and get going, sound to wake up to in the mornings.
It was a pretty cool adventure. The kids all liked it. While we were waiting for our tour guide to get us we walked around the little shop and they have a giant beehive with plexi glass for walls so you can watch the bees inside their hive and see what they do and what it looks like. The were even able to find the queen bee that was laying eggs.
When our tour guide came and got us we walked around the sanctuary and got to meet all the animals. They have around 37 animals there in all. They were all animals that had been rescued from situations or injuries that won’t allow them to be in the wild anymore on their own. They had 6-8 tigers, a few lynx, servals, a pair of foxes, a leopard, a lion and a lioness, and a handful of other animals that I had never heard of before that we saw. Our guide told us a lot about each animal and also told us each of the animals individual stories and about their personalities. The tour was almost an hour long and the kids were interested the whole time, and new most of the animals by name when we were done. One of the things that stood out to me the most that I didn’t know before we went is that a fox makes oil on its skin that smells just like a skunk. It is a self defense mechanism. That is of course why the people that thought it would be ‘fun’ to have a pet fox got rid of him when he started making that smell. Boy did he stink!!
The last two animals we saw were wolves. They were both losing their winter coat and there was wolf fur all over the place back in their area. Our guide grabbed a handful of it and let the kids feel how soft it was. Emilee immediately started running around collecting as much of it as she could. She was very disappointed when her dad said she could not bring it home. She went from disappointed to mad when she looked at me to see if I would over ride dad and let her keep it and instead I said not only could she not take it home, she could not take it in the van. Gross. That is all we need, a giant ball of wolf hair spread all over the car and house.
Despite the wolf fur set back, we all had a good time and it was a cool place to see.
The animals were much more active then in zoos, the kids liked seeing them up and moving around. 
This tiger was rescued from the circus. 
Emilee begging to keep just a little wolf fur, oh and the really cool stick she couldn’t live without too.