My kids were about 7 and 8.5 yrs old. I would always take the whole family to that first football game over Labor Day weekend. We would leave our house on Friday and work somewhere to see along the way, usually something educational. This time I wanted to see the WWII memorial in Bedford. To make it in time before it closed for the evening and have meaningful time to visit, we had to leave our house in NoVa by 11:00am.

Packing a family for a 3 day vacation plus full tailgate, including tent, grill, etc was no easy thing. Everyone in my family was moving slowly (except me) and I was getting mad. It was like herding cats. We didn't back the suburban out of the driveway until almost 1:00pm. Ok, there's still a chance we could make it, we just won't have much time there, but it's outsideso I'm insisting we still try.

Stop at Woodstock (an hour away from home) because we hadn't had lunch and we always gas up the car there since the gas is so much cheaper than at home. The suburban takes 42 gallons so the savings is not insignificant.

While my little almost 7 yr old girl is at McDonalds, she picks up a brochure from the rack of travel brochures. We get in the car and she hands it to me and says, Can we go here! Let's go here! No, I say, we are going to the WWII memorial (AND YOU'LL LIKE IT!!). I am still in a bad mood.

She is disappointed. Still clinging and looking at the brochure.

We run into traffic. Mom is MAD. You do not want to make mom mad. I am bitchin at the family because they did not do what they were supposed to do to get out of the house in time.

I realize we aren't going to make it to the WWII memorial in time. My daughter pulls out the brochure again. Well can we go here? Give me that, I take it from her and look at it. Oh, we are about 5 miles from there. OK, I give up. Let's go. I really did not expect anything.

We bought a few buckets of feed at the gate and enter and immediately see the parade of animals lined up on the road waiting for us. Wow. We loved everything. Spent 2.5 hours slowly driving through feeding everything. The bison came up to our car and it seemed his whole eye filled the window as he peered in at me. The emus were obnoxious but made us belly laugh so much. We loved the little pot belly pigs. We stopped at the giraffe pen and my son offered up some feed. The giraffe grabbed the bucket out of his hands, threw back his head letting the feed slide down his throat and then tossed the bucket back in the car onto my sons lap. OMG I am laughing just typing this. Two and a half hours of laughing and wonder. It was great.

So afterwards I told my daughter she saved the trip. Mom was in a great mood.

Since then we have been at least 5 other times. Once again with the whole family and once with friends and cousins to/from football game (you've got to see this!). My daughter ended up going to school at VT and one time she and I found ourselves passing by the park on the way home from Blacksburg one time. We look at each otherhey you want to go to the safari park? Sure! Still makes us laugh. Glad people are still enjoying it. Thanks for conjuring up my memories. Great way to start the last day of a stressful work week.
[Post edited by GFallsFan at 09/04/2020 09:38AM]