Nancy and I spent our 6th wedding anniversary on safari.  

We packed up the car and headed up to Santa Rosa to Safari West.  We even took Madeleine along!

We stayed at the Flamingo Resort Hotel in Santa Rosa.  Not a bad place to stay, but a bit on the old side.  They do have a well heated, Olympic size swimming pool though.

Madeleine testing out the beds in our room.

We went on a trial run up to Safari West the night before and got a sneak peek at some of the animals.

Going up the night before was good because the lemurs were out in force.  Here I am in front of a pen full of playful Black and White Ruffed Lemurs.  There is also an island with an active colony of Ring Tailed Lemurs.

Madeleine asleep on the big day of the safari.  "Five more minutes!" she pleaded.

Into the army surplus 3/4 ton trucks and out amongst the animals!  First stop, giraffes!

Here you can see how close the giraffe is to our truck.

A giraffe showing us that he only has bottom teeth.  There were reticulated and Maasai giraffe at Safari West, but I don't remember which was which, only that they keep them separated. 

Earl the ostrich, who pecked at the seat cushions in our truck and followed us around for a while.

The female ostrich was much more low-key about the whole thing.

We got to see the six cape buffalo they have at Safari West.  One of the big four (or five, depending on who you speak to) big game animals of Africa.  The others are the lion, the rhino, the elephant, and the leopard.

Here is our driver and tour guide Dave and the sixth buffalo, the bachelor male who has to steer (heh) clear of the dominate male.

Again, you can see how close we got to the buffalo.

The bachelor male again.

A heard of Aoudad, or Barbary Sheep.

A group of Wildebeast off in the woods.

We managed to get closer to the Wildebeasts.  We were told they usually run off when you get too close.

One of two big, male Greater Kudu we saw in the upper hills.

The Kudu stopped and stood stone still when we got close.

You can see how their fur allows them to blend in pretty well with their California environment.

A heard of Defassa Waterbuck.

A Gemsbok that came up to the truck when we stopped.

Again, you can see how close the animals got to us at times.

Watusi cattle laying about. Talk about big horns.

The Watusi barely took notice of us as we drove through the herd.

On to the Next Page!

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