Hidden Valley Animal Adventures

I saw an article in the paper a long time ago for Hidden Valley Animal Adventures in Varysburg, NY, and really wanted to go. So when a Groupon came up for it, we bought tickets. Those tickets expired at the end of July, so we finally set a date to go see it on Saturday. It was awesome. We started on an hourlong trolley ride through the animal park. They give each person a cup of feed for the ride. I got on the trolley thinking, "Well, hopefully we'll see some animals and get close enough to actually feed one." I didn't have to wait long. This was the first picture that I took. Note: I did not zoom in.

The animals came from all over right up to the trolley and wanted to eat! I wish I could remember the names of all of the different animals, but I can't. I was too busy trying to make sure the kids weren't going to be impaled to listen much to the tour guide (this is the third picture I took, again, without zooming):

Here are a few more pictures highlighting just how close they got. It was pretty amazing. Also a few times the driver would start to pull the tractor and then had to stop because there was some animal underneath the tractor that he would have run over.



Here are some of the other interesting animals that we saw in the park:

Pretty cool, huh? I was impressed. There were animals everywhere! The ones two up from the bottom are water buffalo - the one on the side is a baby that was only a couple of weeks old.

After we went on the trolley tour, we went and had lunch at the van - I brought sandwiches and you weren't supposed to bring any outside food. They had a nice restaurant on site, but we decided to save the money and eat on the cheap. We saw some other frugal families doing the same thing, which made me feel a little better.

Then we went to the ultimate petting zoo. Check it out:

These animals weren't part of the petting zoo, but they were just on the other side of the fence: A zebra, a zeedon (a mix between a zebra and a donkey), and a camel.

We had a great time and the kids can't wait to go back. I highly recommend it!