the incredible birthday adventure - day 7

Our last day of adventure started out with breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty. Metal plates, tin cups and all of the pancakes, doughnuts, scrambled eggs and sausage you can eat. After that we hit the biggest candy store in Wisconsin - Goody Goody Gumdrop. Each kid picked out one special treat for the ride home. For Kooka it was a pinwheel lollipop that spins 5 different flavored "petals" on your tongue. Punk picked candy dog food in a real dog dish. Mom had a giant truffle, and Aaron who was nursing a sore throat that Punk had been battling all week, took a tiny bit of rock candy.

So finally, FINALLY, we were ready to tackle those alligators. After securing the area, purchasing our beef cubes, and making sure nobody was holding any cute little mice, we entered the reptile room. Kooka noticed the albino aligator right away, Punk loved the little Caimans that looked like tiny velociraptors. When we finally went to feed the gators, it was actually kind of sad. Of course it was Punk who pointed out, "Uh they don't really have much room to move around in that tank." And it was true - there were about eight big gators in a tank the length (and 1/3 the width) of our living room. When we dropped the meat in the tank, they just swished their old heads around until it floated into their mouths. Most of their teeth were broken and they didn't seem to have much fight left in them - even Kooka seemed unimpressed. Then the family behind us wanted to feed a live mouse to the caimans. Aaron managed to steer Punk away from the scene, but not before Punk dished out a generous huff and several dirty looks to the little girl in the yellow dress who was calling for the mouse execution.

Before we left, the kids got to hold a real gator. I don't know why they gave Kooka the head to hold - seems crazy to me. But have no worries - the gator's mouth was taped shut. Yeah - you heard me - TAPED. All that was between my five-year-old's face and a gator's snapping jaws was one thin piece of SCOTCH tape. I couldn't even look - Aaron took the picture.


Our final stop was at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo. None of us really dig the circus, but actually, this turned out to be the perfect stop for our final adventure.

On top of the acrobats, clowns and tightrope walker we saw, there were animals. And if you know our kids at all - you know which animals are at the top of the list: Horses for Kooka, and African Elephants for Punk. Both are fiercely loyal to their chosen species. Punk of course, had his concerns. He knows that circuses are notorious for treating animals poorly, and his first question was "How do they treat the animals here?" But his question was answered almost immediately when he met Alex (age 9) and Taylor (age 5). Alex and Taylor's dad owns the elephants, and the girls help with training, giving rides and treats. Punk was thrilled when they let him come into the pen and help feed and water the elephants. Kooka fed an elephant a snack, but chose to ride the ponies instead.




Both kids left feeling like they were the luckiest people in the whole world -and after this adventure . . .well maybe they are.