Deer Acres

Oh, Deer Acres. This has been open for as long as I can remember, it was the destination of many class trips at the end of the school year. It's located about 10 - 15 minutes north of Grandma & Papa's house. It was much different when I was a child - the deer were roaming free in the park and would allow people to pet them. My dad has been excited to take Bree to Deer Acres. He wanted to watch her on the rides and interact with the animals - after all, she does have a great time at Elmo Park!

Deer Acres was sold within the last few years to new owners. And after 20+ years, the park looked a lot different from the last time I was there. (Okay, truth be told I was there for a friend's wedding reception in the late 90s - but I was in the reserved area, not the general park.)

The biggest change is that, well, there are no more deer at Deer Acres. Something about the Department of Natural Resources, having to have a 10 foot fence around the whole park, and not being able to have any other animals if they had deer. I am fuzzy on the details, but that was the gist of it. Perhaps a name change is in order? Then again, it's been Deer Acres for close to (if not more than) 40 years.

However, the carousel ride is still operating. And just as enchanting now as it was when I was little. Bree wasn't sure about the carousel, it did go faster than any other carousel that she's been on. She held on tight and made sure that I was holding on to her.

If you click on the link in the opening sentance, you can see what animals they do have. You can't really pet them, they're all caged now, but you can still feed them some snacks. There used to be a safari ride - I remember this very clearly because they used to have someone in a gorilla suit jump out of the woods at a certain point along the trail. If my memory is correct, the gorilla would sometimes be armed with a water pistol or something equally as annoying to greet the riders. (The "ride" was a truck pulling passengers on a large tram - I'm not describing this well, but it was like being on a train, only not on a track but pulled like a car. So, yeah, not exactly a train, huh?) Anyway, along the safari route, there were animal statues. The next pictures are of the zebra and the giraffe that used to be part of the safari ride. (And I have heard that they had to get rid of the safari ride due to a lawsuit. Apparently not everyone finds it amusing to be harrassed by a man in a gorilla suit.)

We had been given some hamburger buns so that we could give the goats and the sheep a snack. I remember feeing the deer and the other animals popcorn - I'm sure that's just wonderful for the deer, huh? Bree wasn't quite sure about getting her hands that close to the sheep and goats, but she did it with a little help from Papa.

Bree has really really really gotten into Dora the Explorer. So much that when we were at Deer Acres, she was acting out scenes from Dora's Animal Adventures. She kept saying that we needed to go save the mountain goat. Bree would put on her backpack (or "padpack" as she calls it) and go running off towards the pygmy goats to save them. She also wanted to save the baby jaguar from the "prickers and thorns" - but alas, no baby jaguars or prickers and thorns at Deer Acres.

There was a "pirate ship" playscape at the park that Bree thoroughly enjoyed. Turn up the volume to hear her say "yo ho ho' like a pirate. It's really funny.

We arrived at Deer Acres around 3:30 and the park closed at 5:00. My dad and I tried to prepare her for leaving, telling her that they needed to feed the animals dinner and put them to bed. But, there was still a tantrum when we left. Good thing we were the only ones in the park!

Once we were in the car she was fine. But seriously - you'd have thought that I had just fed Beary to the goats!