The Wilds volunteers Aug - Sept 2018

Volunteers at The Wilds

After spending time with Joyce's sister and family in Virginia, we headed thru southwestern Pennsylvania and camped at Zanesville, Ohio. In nearby Cumberland, Ohio is The Wilds, a nearly 10,000 acre non-profit conservation center that is associated with the Columbus Zoo. They are home to rare and endangered species from around the world. They have a wildlife safari bus tour that travels inside the property to show several breeds of animals, some we'd never even heard the names. The facilities have educational camps, overnight stays in yurts, zip-line tours, horsebacking riding, fishing, hikes and much more.

This view shows the Pere David deer in the lake trying to stay cool. The Onagers were roaming on the bank.

Wildlife Safari tour bus near the White Rhinos and the Semitar-Horned Oryx.

The giraffes know which vehicles have the feed!

Joyce called The Wilds about their volunteering opportunities after looking them up online. Emily Knapp the volunteer coordinator was so enthusiastic, we had to go meet her and sign up! (Unfortunately there are no campgrounds that we found nearby so we drove to The Wilds from Wolfie's Family Kamping in Zanesville, about 30 minutes each way. We told Emily if they'd put in some camp spots for volunteers, they would have all the volunteers they wanted!) We could choose which area or areas that we wished to volunteer. They even had "Restoration Ecology" as they try to work on bringing back some of the native plant species of the area, so Joyce could sign up to "play in the dirt". LOL

Emily met us with our new badges

 As we were there over Labor Day our first volunteering took place with helping guests thru the busy weekend. Randy loved helping in the Kids Discovery Field Station building where they have all sorts of things for kids to learn about. Everything from a light box with x-rays of various animals, stuffed animals they can "operate" on, digging pit to find the American Burying Beetle (plastic look-alikes) that is one of their restoration projects and so much more. Joyce helped out in the bus tour line. She had a vertebrae of giraffe and had questions & answers for the kids waiting in line.

Randy volunteering in the Kids Discovery Field Station

Another day we went into clean the barns. Guess we just missed the smell of manure from our horse days. Soon a call was put out that they were inoculating the Persian Onagers (Joyce's favorite ... donkeys) and could use help. These donkeys were not loving like Joyce's Eeyore, although maybe as stubborn! So we went and helped operate the gates on a chute system like cattle chutes but this setup is strong enough to hold wild animals. We even got to visit with some of the crew who are on "Secrets of the Zoo" on National Georgraphic channel. (We had not even seen the show till we started volunteering and ran across it one night on satellite.) What an experience!

Persian Onagers

At The Wilds besides their 2 hour Open-Air Safari they have a Wildside Safari Tour which allows you to feed some of the animals. As we were feeding the giraffes, the guide mentioned the one giraffe would take a romaine leaf from your mouth, if any one was brave enough. Of course Joyce had to try it, then others in group did as well. We also got to feed one of the Greater One-horned Asian Rhinos. It was a rainy day for our tour but because of the cooler weather we saw more of the animals who hadn't been out much in the end of summer heat on previous days.

Joyce was silly enough to let giraffe take lettuce leaf from her mouth.

The Greater One-Horned Asian Rhino got apples or sweet potatoes as treats. That day Joyce found his favorite was the apples.

Bactrian Deer how majestic!

Banteng

Sichuan Takin a "vunerable species" native to Tibet.

Look deep into my eyes and follow the stripe. Grevy's Zebra

African Painted Dog

The Cheetahs exhibit had 2 births, one right before we arrived and one after. This resulted in 7 cubs which hopefully will be on display come spring. Two males soaking up the shade.

When you're a BIG baby and momma is short-legged, you have to improvise to nurse. Southern White Rhino

These were just "beggers" on the road. Bactrian Camels

   The Columbus Zoo 

With volunteering at The Wilds we could go to their partner site the Columbus Zoo. It was about an hour drive from our campground. We enjoyed the up-close experiences with some of the animals that we hadn't seen in other zoos. We spent two different days at the zoo, unfortunately we missed the weekend that was celebrating Jack Hannah 40 years with the zoo.

Joyce loved feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets. Once the feed was gone, one tried to eat the flowers on her shirt.

We loved how close you could get to the Kangaroos which were right next to the walkway. Of course they have volunteers to watch over them to keep them safe.

We loved the polar bear exhibit! This was the underwater view area. Joyce was catching pics as he'd push off the glass and do a backflip.

What a ham! We laughed and could've watched him all day!

He loved the attention and would pop up right by the kids.

This Brown Bear was so impressive!

The Cougar's eyes are so beautiful!

We felt so blessed seeing all the unusual animals. And felt with some of them God must have had a sense of humor!😄
We plan on returning to volunteer more as our travels allow next year. 
What can we say but we LOVED our experiences at The Wilds!

You can find out more at their website...
https://thewilds.columbuszoo.org/

Connie and Big Bend National Park March 1 -5, 2018

Dottie Jean with Uncle Randy & Aunt Joyce

We had decided to meet Connie & Dottie Jean (who was driving in from Arizona) at Monahans Sandhills State Park. Amazing to go along Texas flatland and then to find these huge sand dunes. We were only able to get one night for the 2 campers, as it was a popular place for kids to take disks or sleds and slide down the dunes like it was snow. So it was decided we'd head down to Big Bend National Park so Randy could get another stamp for his parks book.

Our campsites.
Connie was smart and avoided our rv as Randy valiantly got the 5th wheel backed in. The road & campsite was narrow and if you dropped off... 4-wheel drive came in handy!

As we were driving out you could see the height of the sand dunes and these weren't the tallest ones.

Wait, is that Dottie Jean driving back there!?!

Amazing how far you can see down the road!

We got a late start as we'd driven to pick up our mail that we had forwarded to Midland, Texas. By the time got close to Maverick Ranch RV Park in Lajitas, we were tired and hoping daylight held till we got there. It didn't, but luckily one of the campground hosts guided us to our sites and was helpful getting us set up.

The next morning we loaded up and started our driving tour of the park. The temps climbed to 96 degrees down by the Rio in the afternoon. Yet as we climbed in altitude at the Chisos Basin around 5000 feet, the temperature would be 20 degrees cooler.

The siblings had fun together! Joyce claimed her ears hurt being around the two of them!🙉

As we drove thru the Rio Grande Village campground inside the park, we kept noticig these steel boxes. It was for campers to store their foodstuffs in, as to keep it from the bears and javelinas.

The town of Boquillas Del Carmen, Mexico.

We drove down one road that showed Port of Entry. The road dead-ended and did not go across the Rio Grande into Mexico. There was a building so Joyce hopped out and went in and asked border guard how it worked. He said "show me your passport & ID, then you walk thru those doors and you can take a ferry, or wade across to Boquillas. The entry building here closes at 5pm so you either are back before then or you spend the night there." When I asked "ferry?" he chuckled and said "it's a rowboat and it costs $5.00 for round trip". It was late afternoon and we didn't have passports with us, so decided we'd just take pictures of Mexico.

As we drove to the Boquillas Canyon overlook, we noticed horses and people on the Mexico side seeming to have a picnic. Hmm, we were amazed no border patrol or fence here?

We're always amazed at Randy's wildlife spotting but this jackrabbit was unbelievable! He was down in a wash, quite a distance from road, taking in the shade in the hot afternoon sun. As we were zipping down road Randy said "look a jackrabbit". Joyce didn't believe him and made him turn and go back.
Yep, there he sat!

The sunset colors were gorgous from our campground!

Panoramic from Sotol Vista on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive

Bright sun & wind with beautiful views

This pic gives you an idea of the vastness of the 801,163 acres  in the park.

Dottie Jean's nose started twitchin' when we saw this bear sign. Uncle Randy said he was going to use her to track bear! LOL

Of course Joyce had to stick her toes in the Rio Grande!

Connie even stuck Dottie Jean's toes in the Rio Grande. The wall of rock at Santa Elena Canyon was so imposing!

As we headed out for Ft. Davis, we drove along the Rio Grande on Highway 170 thru the Big Bend Ranch State Park.

You can see the highway climbing up on left side of pic to the Fandango Dom Rock. That's the Rio Grande at bottom.

The view going down the other side of Fandango.

As we drove towards Presidio it was amazing to see irrigated farm land along the Rio Grande.

We all enjoyed our days in the Big Bend National Park. No matter how much trouble Randy gives his sister, we were blessed to share it with family! The various rock formations were fascinating, along with the view of the river separating Mexico from the US.