Panera, Botanical Gardens, Wildlife Ranch and Bertha

Today we started by going to Panera breads for breakfast. We had a really cheerful cashier and that put me in a good mood for the day! After breakfast we went to the Botanical Gardens here in San Antonio, we probably spent two to three hours there, it was beautiful and fun. They had random gardens, a rose garden, and 3 native Texas gardens. Our favorite was the Texas Hills garden, reminded us of home. The best part of the botanical gardens, in my mind was feeding the ducks and turtles. The first time I fed the animals it was just 4 ducks and they were very friendly and demanding, but demanding in the nicest way of course!! It was fun they were mallards of course. Then we walked further around the pond and found another feeding spot. My generous grandma gave me some more quarters to feed the ducks and the next thing I know a Red Eared (spelling?) Slider was on the bank eating some of the food that I had dropped. It really took me by surprise. :)So I then started trying to feed the turtles as well as the ducks and ended up with 6 ducks and about 13 turtles. WOW. I really dont know why but that was my favorite part of the botanical gardens!! :) After walking around we went to the gift shop! And thank goodness we had grandma, just kidding. But grandma splurged and bought herself a shirt that cost over 100 dollars and said that since she was splurging that we could splurge too, so I got a nice Dragonfly totebag and little turtle, to remind me of the feeding fest.
From there we went to the Wildlife Ranch and that was fun. Wow where to start? Well we get our tickets and our bags of food. We pass some giraffes which arent with the rest of the animals, though we arent sure why, maybe because they are just SO BIG. But still there are giraffes there and we got to see them, lots of adults and some babies as well. Then we start driving in the wild areas, where all the other animals are loose, allowed to just wander around. The food that we are given is supposed to be thrown at the animals but the animals were real friendly so we ended up hand feeding them. The first thing that I hand fed was a Barasingha deer. We then saw lots and lots of other animals, including, Watusi cows, the famous Texas Longhorns, some Bison, Kudu, Springbok, Gemsbok, Formosan Sika, Elk, Scimitar Horned Oryx, Nilgai, Wildebeest (there were VERY cute, VERY young babies!!!), Aoudad, a Rhino, Bactrian Camels (a baby one here too, a Cape Buffalo- BIG, Ostrich- which tried to come in the car, NOT my idea of fun, and therefore I was called a sissy by my mom and grandma because I was unwilling to feed the Ostriches, Rhea, Emu, Donkeys, Addax, Llamas and my favorites the Damaraland Zebras. There was a whole herd of zebras and they understood that cars=food. So they would come up to the cars and DEMAND food, I was all to willing to comply!! There were several youngsters here too and feeding the Zebra's was my highlight of the whole park, well that and 2 cute guys but thats besides the point! The zebras also tried to get into the car, getting their WHOLE head in the car and demanding food; they were also tame enough to pet and that was just so much fun.
Bertha is our GPS system that is just wonderful, she has gotten us all around Texas, well with my help of course!! haha. Bertha doesn't always go the way I want her to so I force her to recalculate when I dont do things her way! But we like Bertha and she is a big help!
After the wildlife park we came back to the hotel, stopping at wal-mart for essentials.
We chilled in the room for a while and then went down to swim and that was nice, a good way to relax. Mom and grandma were asleep at about 9:30 and I only made it to 10 before I turned everything off and fell asleep myself.