Out of Africa

Friday, Oct. 5 - Joan and had a good flight to Cottonwood AZ. Flight was 2 ½ hours in very smooth air at 11500 feet. Joel, Yoni, Elena and Tony met us there at the airport and Joel took us to the hotel. We had a nice late lunch with all the margaritas anyone would ever want. After about a 2-hour nap we packed up and headed for the Blazing M Ranch for dinner and county western performance. We looked around the ranch for about an hour then had a nice veggie dinner along with their regular menu of BBQ chicken and ribs. Yes they do provide an alternative to meat. After dinner we were entertained by a talented group of country-style musicians and singers. There was also a comedian who provided lots of laughs. The performance was finished by 9:00pm and we all got in the van to return to the hotel.

Saturday, Oct. 6 - Got up, dressed, out the door early to meet everyone at Randal’s café across the street for breakfast. We left at 9:30 am for the trip to Out of Africa, which is a wild animal park consisting of about 23 acres where the animals are in huge areas similar to their native habitats. After a ride around the whole park by Safari tram we spent the rest of the day watching shows of all kinds. From the open sided tram we fed the giraffe carrots and some held the carrots in their own mouth and got a sloppy kiss with the giraffe’s long black tongue. That was some sight to see. There was a wild white tiger show in a large swimming pool (got a good video of this). There was the snake show where little kids got to pick up and hold a giant boa snake. The critter show starred a large iguana-like reptile and an African porcupine. The shows were geared around education about the animals and reptiles.   It was a full day.

    We returned to the hotel for a beer and a fast shower before heading off to dinner at the Hamburger Heaven Restaurant in Jerome, which is built on the hillside near Cottonwood. It was great fun! Don had a garden burger he filled with veggies and sauerkraut and he says it really tasted good. We looked around Jerome for about 1 hr and back to the hotel

Sunday, Oct 7 - We got up early, grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed out for the airport. We had to get an early start to beat the Presidential TFR (temporary flight restriction) that was planned for 12:45 pm. After our smooth flight of 2 1/2 hours at 10500 we landed at Santa Paula for gas before returning to Oxnard. It was First Sunday when all the antique aircraft and warbirds, and cars are on display. It was very busy and we followed 3 or 4 planes in to land and ran into many people we knew. Berkeley was there and Lucy came over to say “Hi”, as she was working at the SP Museum. Got to talk to a few other people. We tried to get lunch at Logsdons but they were out of veggie burgers so we flew back to Oxnard for lunch.

     Don thinks this was one of the more memorable Airventurer’s trips, and we had a lot of fun and learned much about wild animals.

Don & Joan