Moonridge Animal Park

Yesterday was such a mellow day (the girls played in the snow, S. went skiing by himself) that we had to go out today - our last day of vacation in the mountains. We chose to visit Moonridge Animal Park, a 2.5-acre habitat with a variety of rescued/rehabilitated animals. The main reason I wanted to visit was so the girls could see some of the animals that were native to the area. Here are the girls, conversing with two of the Mule Deer...

Look at this magnificent wood bison! He was so huge and majestic... can you just imagine what a herd of hundreds or thousands would have looked like?

They have at least two Bald Eagles in captivity here. I'd never seen a real one up-close, so this was quite an experience. Even Mika has been learning about the bald eagle in kindergarten (along with famous U.S. presidents)! Fawnskin, the next town over, is supposedly home to the largest population of wintering bald eagles.

Also known as "Harry Potter's owl" to S., this snowy owl took my breath away. Isn't it beautiful? And just look at those fabulous feet!

And here are my most favorite creatures on the face of this earth! What a change to see a zoo covered in snow, but it was still a great experience (although the girls did keep falling down, they also kept climbing the snow embankments to see better). They saw so many different animals up close (rather than "other" zoos where you can hardly see anything, they are so far away): grizzly bears, black bears, racoons, foxes, coyotes, pelicans, bison, snow leopards, timber wolves, bald eagles, golden eagles, ravens, crows, all sorts of owls, mule deer, and even skunks! At the noon animal presentation, the girls were able to see a (descented) skunk up-close... and learned a little bit about their biology and behavior.

They are in the process of working on relocating to a 25-acre preserve across the way to another nearby mountain. We'll look forward to visiting again as that project progresses...

So, it's almost time to go home. After breakfast tomorrow, we'll roll back down the mountain and get ready for the next week. It was a fun week - we were extremely fortunate that there was plenty of snow on the ground plus good weather!