Drive Through Safari – Rockhome Gardens

activities, home schoolers, home schooling

While visiting home we decided to check out the drive through safari. I’ve done one with my middle son before, and we have driven through a park with Buffalo by Murray here in Kentucky also – but this one has taken over a park our family visited many times years ago.

Rockhome Gardens (What was there)

Rockhome Gardens was a park that existed when my older two children were young.  The park was run by the Amish and would have activities on some weekends.  Our family usually had a season pass each summer.  One of the fun things to do included an area to sit and eat lunch in the center of a train track that ran outside.  The kids would run and watch the trains as they ran around while we all ate.

Other things to do included seeing a chicken play tic tac toe, taking carriage rides, riding a horse that would cut a small piece off of log, and a small petting zoo.  The park would have kids activities, quilt shows and lots of other great activities!  The boys and I would head up and have lunch anytime activities were going on, sometimes riding the ‘train’ around the park also.

Texas Drive Through

While on a trip to Texas, my middle son, my mother, and I found a drive through safari. We LOVED it! We arrived early and the animals were still awake.  I do have to admit to one issue trying to push a zebra back out of the car, when it stuck it’s head in for more food and decided it could eat from my lap. The Texas Safari allowed animals to be fed from the car.  – Just don’t get out of the car.  We had a great time, actually taking two trips through!  The animals were less active as the day went on, but the earlier drive through had really made it worth it.

 Arcola Drive Through – Aikman Wildlife Safari

The Arcola Drive Through has been put in place where Rockhome Gardens was.  For the standard fee, you are allowed to drive through the park with your windows up and see all the animals.  Visitors can pay extra for a trip through the park in a gator type ‘golf cart’ and feed the animals.  My youngest didn’t want to touch the animals, but seeing them through the windows was fun for him.  This was the perfect trip for him!  The Texas safari I had a zebra reach in and had to push it’s head back out of the car.  We also had driven through a park Land Between the Lakes with Buffalo, but there were limited animals there.  This park had a selection of animals – deer, zebras, emus, and even buffalo.  There is a part that is walk through, and a petting zoo.  We may work our way up to that.

 

Cost:

Drive-thru Adventure (includes Walk-thru)
$10.00 ~ 13 years and up
$7.00 ~ 4 – 12 years old
Free ~ 2 years and younger

 

Wagon Tour Adventure (includes Walk-thru)
$15.00 ~ 13 years and up
$12.00 ~ 3 – 12 years old
Free ~ 2 years and younger

 

Behind-the-Scenes Adventure (includes Walk-thru)
$30.00 ~ 13 years and up
$25.00 ~ 3 – 12 years old

 

Walk-thru Only
$6.00 ~ 13 years and up
$4.00 ~ 3 – 12 years old
Free ~ 2 years and younger

 

Drive-thru Only
$20 per standard vehicle
$50 per small bus / 12 passenger van or bigger

Hours:

Spring Hours (beginning April 1)

Saturday 10am – 4pm
Sunday 12pm – 4pm

Monday: Closed

Tuesday: Closed

Wednesday: Closed

Thursday: (By appointment only, tour groups and field trips)

Friday: Closed

Tying In Tech

Once in a while it’s great to get out into the sun and see things out in real life.  For us that involved driving through in our car… I actually think there was an ipad and of course our phones for taking pictures were included (and video). We did make it out of the house for a little bit though. We actually met a friend for ice cream on the same trip, and had a great time out for a little while.  We stopped for lunch at an Amish market and then went past an outlet mall to walk around after finishing.

After getting home though we had to get online and get answers to the questions that we had made while driving through the safari.

  1. How big can a buffalo get?
  2. What do buffalo eat?
  3. What are fallow deer?
  4. How are Emus and Ostriches different?
  5. How high can a deer jump?
  6. Why do only male Peacocks have big plumes?
  7. Why do some of the animals need salt licks?

We had a long list with many more questions we could check out online.  We could have googled each thing while driving through on our mobile device, but that would have taken a long time and would have cut down on seeing some of the cool things the animals did.  We should have added a step of looking up what animals the park had ahead of the visit and learned something about each animal first… then watched for the behaviors during the drive.  Before going it would be good to know what animals are nocturnal, what animals interact well, and if any are carnivores?

I plan to go back this summer my little one (and take friends if I can convince them)!