St. Patty's Day at Busch Gardens

Hey everyone! It's Spring Break time here in Florida, and Saturday was not only St. Patrick's Day, but gorgeous and sunny. I was actually feeling well and we decided to take advantage of the day and play tourists. So we wildly agreed to spend the equivalent of a semester of college tuition (I'm only slightly exaggerating) and go to Busch Gardens.

Neither of us are into rides or roller coasters, but we went to see the wildlife. The gators are bigger here than we're used to.

We also saw this mamma gorilla nursing her baby. I love this pic - her eyes are so expressive.

The park enclosures are beautiful - even when we couldn't spot any animals.

We started by taking a train ride through their Serengeti.

 A rare two-headed giraffe (just kidding)

Baby rhino!

You can take a safari tour - on that truck you see in the background - but it's an additional $40 a person and the superzoom let me get some good pics anyway.

So anyway, we got off the train at its first stop to have some lunch and then toured some of the other animal exhibits throughout the park.

And, in this case, they brought an animal out to see us. I wouldn't want to be putting the leash on this guy.

The park is huge and a lot of walking. We decided to take another ride - but this time on their sky ride - gondolas that are VERY HIGH UP.

Believe it or not, I was able to get some cool pics of the animals from up here that I missed on the train.

Happy Baby Elephant!

Up above the treetops!

Back on the ground, Glenn was very excited to capture this action duck shot.

As I said, we didn't ride any coasters (even if we wanted to, it said the line at Cobra's Curse was 72 minutes long!!!), but we saw them.

nope, nope, nope

So anyway, the place is a bit of a maze - we kept retracking our steps. At the end of the day, we finally made it to where we were supposed to start out in the park. They were having their food and wine fest, and this section of the park was really pretty - lush and tropical with a bit of a Disney flair.

A living statue in a fountain

We got to a small aviary, and I think this might be my favorite pic of the day. Dad, I think you will like this...it reminds me of some of the paintings you had in your office.

Isn't he a fine fellow?

And finally, I thought these flamingo scenes looked like postcards for Florida.

Anyway, glad we finally had a new blog-worthy experience to share. That was probably our first and last trip there unless we win the lottery, but it was worth seeing.

Hope all is well with you all and spring is heading to Western PA! Later, gators!