Courtney's Blog July 9th, Day 4 of the Epic McFarland Journey!

I have to start by saying I FED AND PET A GIRAFFE FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES TODAY. His name was Sheldon and we fell in love. Anyone who knows me, knows that these creatures are my absolute FAVORITE. The coolest part was that we didn't have any idea we were going to do this today!

Today started with us waking Gideon up with a lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday", giving him his presents and going about our merry way! We first headed over to Jiffy Lube after realizing the rental car place never got the oil changed on a car we are driving 7,000 miles. Way to go, Hertz. That was rather uneventful and boring - but after that, we were OFF!

Our first stop is Meramec Caverns. This totally cool cavern that you can go and explore. Movies have been shot there, and it is sometimes used for concerts too. The tour was pretty cool. Abby adored the entire cave, and Gideon was scared of the "shadow man". Gideon also spent a good amount of time fighting with the other little boy on the tour. He had a vendetta with this other kid. I have NO idea where it came from. The other kid would say "wow, it got dark in here!" to his parents. Gideon would chime in and say "No, it didn't get dawk in her-a". The little boy would say "Look what I did" to his parents. Gideon would say "No, I did dat!". I guess now that he is 4, he is large and in charge. Anyhow the tour ended with some really hokey "show" on the cave wall. They played "God Bless America" and the tour guide literally flipped the lights on and off and they called it "a show". Other than that, the cave was really cool, and something we don't normally get the chance to see.

Our next stop was Ha Ha Tonka State Park. A park with some weird European castle that was moved there by aliens or something. We never made it here. The route we took was full of cool roadside pictures and where this was 30 minutes out of the way, we chose to bypass it. We forged onward realizing we wouldn't really have any other stops today. Because the area is so remote, there are not many options for bathrooms. We all had to go pretty bad, but Gideon had fallen asleep. Those of you who don't know Gideon that well....I can't even begin to describe the horror of waking Gideon up before he is ready. This kid is like an angry troll whose bridge was just knocked down. After a full-on-top-of-the-lungs-meltdown in the "Kum and Go" gas station bathroom which was covered in FLIES, we finally got back on the road.

We are almost to our stopping point for the night, when Adam sees on the map a drive-thru zoo. We hem and haw on whether or not to go...its $70 for all of us. Yikes that's a lot of dough! Adam makes the executive decision to just do it. We pull in and its pretty empty. We have the option to wait for a tour guided bus in 45 minutes, or just drive ourselves through. We chose to drive. I was driving. This turned out to be a mistake. The first couple minutes of the drive, we realized this was a bust. The animals are far away in cages, and the only ones who are loose are deer that we could see in our backyard in Hop-town. Oh well. We keep going and come across this rather large male deer who gets super close to the car. He stares at us through the window as if to say "you don't belong here". I drive a little quicker away. Next we come across an Emu. He stands in the middle of the road in front of me and blocks the way out. He starts walking slowly towards the car in the most menacingly way an Emu can walk. I obviously scream and drive on the grass a little to get away. This is getting interesting. I turn the corner and see it. BISON. A HERD OF BISON. You guessed it, one blocks the road and makes me stop the van. He then walks over to the driver side window and starts itching his head on my side mirror. He is so itchy. I am so terrified. This thing is huge. Its eye to eye with me, except I am sitting in this van!! I scream the loudest yet and beg it to let me drive off without running it over. Two seconds later the Zebras get involved. The Zebra blows its nose on Adam's side mirror. And the other one stands in the street blocking the exit. We now are fully surrounded. I start to inch away slowly and they "back off". Next was the scariest moment. Once escaping the Bison and the Zebra gang members, we come across the camel. Do you have any idea how big a camel is? I am serious. You have no idea. No, you don't. Don't argue with me. The thing was taller than the van by 3 feet. It's legs stopped at the windshield. This camel that was blocking the street, just walks right into our car and stares down at us through the windshield. I am screaming, Gideon is hysterical, Abby is half-laughing, half-screaming and Adam can't even breathe he is laughing to hard. I am so scared this Camel is going to use the van as a stepping stone that I slowly inch forward forcing that jerk right out of the road. We also encountered a donkey, more Emu and more deer all who bullied us. Turns out $70 was OK for this terror-fest. Gideon had a great time on his birthday. We leave the driving part of the Zoo and see a GIRAFFE in the petting zoo section. We get out and buy $2 worth of food to feed to the animals (aka the Giraffe). The giraffe, Sheldon, was GORGEOUS and sweet and gentle. He took food from all of us and let us pet him for a long time. I was in heaven. How amazing. I would have paid $70 just to do THAT!! We meander back to the car and see a peacock staring at itself in our headlight. We open the car door to see if it will go away. Instead, it falls more madly in love with its reflection and scares Abby enough that she can't get in the car. We finally get in the car, and the crazy thing starts chasing our car. This is in the parking lot, mind you!!! I drive backwards as fast as possible and get out of there!

We left there fully satisfied by our surprise visit. We can't wait for more surprise adventures. We got Gideon a birthday cake drinking ice cream (aka a shake), and got a really cool "suite" hotel room where Mommy and Daddy have their own room for the night! What a treat!

Summary:

Didn't get out of Missouri, but had an amazing adventure! Gideon's birthday went great, and he is now confrontational. We are excited for what tomorrow brings!

Ended the Day at the Drury Inn Springfield, Missouri

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