Trip to Abilene Tx

Today we took a trip to Abilene Tx. It's only about an hour and a half away and they have alot to do there. Our first stop was the zoo. It's not huge, but they have alot of fun animals. They also have pennies for Nico's book. :)



I finally got to see my buffalo, but if you can't tell from the boys in the picture, they smelled awful.

One of the favorite things was the giraffes. They had a bridge over the giraffe area where you could see their faces and tongues up close.


The hit for us though was the snake pit. They had a wide variety of snakes, including a green mamba which, according to Nico, makes it one of the best snake pits ever.



Here is Derek analyzing a cottonmouth. Believe it or not, this is not the closest he's ever been to one. The time before was a much scarier situation for me though. :)

Nico's favorite was the King Cobra.


After the zoo, we went to Abilene state park. They have a few hiking trails and alot of trees for Derek to climb.



The last picture is very special to me because it was less than a minute before our exciting encounter (that I didnt get a picture of because I was trying to get the boys in check). The watering hole behind the boys is the only one for the whole park. While we were hiking along the trail next to it, Nico hears a rustling in the brush across the trail from the little pond. He gets a little nervous and freezes (he was our leader and I was in the rear). A few seconds later, a VERY large pack of feral hogs come barreling across the trail a few feet from where Nico is standing. He starts running and screaming. I try to calm him down (because for those of you who don't know, they can be quite aggresive especially when there are babies present, which there were). He finally stops screaming long enough for me to look up and see Derek trying to go after the hogs! He said he wanted to see where they were going. It's really funny how opposite they are. Didn't scare him one bit that he could get run over by these animals. Anyways, we stood there for a moment, Nico hiding, Derek being restrained from taking off again, until they passed. After a vote (and alot of whining) we decided that we had enough excitement for one day and headed back home.
We headed home the same way we always come on our way down here. I always forget to put this on here though. The biggest wind farm in the world is on the way to San Angelo. My kids are absolutely fascinated by it. All you can see in any direction is windmills. It's a pretty cool site.




Fun Fact: The blades for alot of the windmills this side of the rockies and our side of the Mississippi come from Arkansas. Derek thinks its very cool to watch the semi trucks carry the blades down the highway. :)