Some time back Claude attended a meeting held at the Salato Wildlife Center in Frankfort, Kentucky. He came home and told me what a beautiful place it was and that we should take grandmonsters there some time. Well...today was the time.
The center opens at 10am. Claude and I drove and parked in the lot by 10am. Andie and the mini-Marx's joined us shortly thereafter. Michael was at a soccer training thing all day and couldn't join us this time.
The Salato Wildlife Center is run by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Resources. The huge campus is set right in a residential area along Hwy. 60. It is actually a training facility as well as corporate type offices. When you enter from the highway you drive down an LONG road. On either side are buildings for offices and training. They are all different sizes and shapes and you begin to wonder if you will ever get to the Salato Wildlife Center. But there are signs pointing to keep you going down this road. At the end of it is the Center. There is a nice sized building, a medium sized parking lot, and a huge grassy area with trees and picnic tables.
When you enter the Center there is a reception desk to answer your questions and get you started on what you want to see. There is an nice exhibit right by this reception desk with some of the Kentucky wildlife displayed. It looks kind of sparse with only 3 animals large enough to notice quickly. But when you stand and look you find birds, lizards, frogs and other animals tucked in and around things. It was fun to stand there with Hayden and Bailey and find things. Almost like 'Where's Waldo' with Kentucky wildlife. Bailey kept calling anything with a snakelike body a snake. I called a lizard like creature with spots and lizard and she looked at me and said, "That's not a yizard, it's a 'nake." I explained that lizards have legs and feet and snake do not. Then she looked again and began to agree. I just loved hearing her say 'yizard' and 'nake'.
Then you enter a hallway that is fairly wide. On the left side is a glass wall so that you can see a garden/pond area with native flowers. It is made to attract butterflies and birds. In front on the glass wall is a table with wooden birdhouses and pictures of animals. You are to find which animal would live in which kind of house. On the right side of this hallway was a banquet table with some living animals that the kids could see and touch as the park rangers took them out. There was a display of Native Americans that lived in the area many years ago. There were also doors that led into large classroom for meeting and training purposes. Overhead were large wild turkeys with their wings open like they were flying. At the end of the hallway was a black bear standing on his hind legs and the tree trunk in front of him had a slot that you could put a contribution in.
The mini-Marx's loved this hallway. Pa (Claude) held each of them up and let them put money in to feed the bear (make a donation). Hayden was fascinated with the big turkeys. At one point they took out the tiny snake and Hayden touched it. Bailey said, "I not touching that 'nake!' They also took out a little box turtle and he just walked all around on the floor. The kids could touch it also. There was a lizard in a plexiglass container and they just watched it through the plexiglass.
The next room was huge and divided by display aquariums, and diaramas (spelling??). In here they kids again got to pet a much larger snake wrapped around a man's arm. They felt the pelts of wild animals and held their skulls. Pa held them up so they could look at the venomous snakes in their displays. They measured themselves against a very large fish with a pointed nose (like a Marlin). Bailey found a Bambi look alike (she is REALLY into Bambi right now). Pa held them up to observe the beehive with the pipe through the wall so the bees could come and go to the hive through the wall. (We were grateful for a strong Pa to do a lot of lifting of short people this time.) One aquarium has a row of fish lined up side-by-side (there were at least 8 of them) looking our of the aquarium at Hayden. There were wild turkey feather fans to play with. There was an elk hoof, jawbone, skull and antler to pick up an touch. Hayden found a kid-sized reading table with a book about turtles and brought it to me. There was one aquarium with an enormous Alligator Snapping Turtle in it. These are rare in Kentucky but do exist. One diarama had an elk and a white tailed deer in it along with otters and other animals. Hayden found a stuffed Golden Eagle named RJ and pressed the button to hear what they had to say about him. The aquarium full of turtles was especially fun for me. On a table with the animal pelts was a glass jar. In this jar was 'skat'. This is another name for deer poo. Hayden was fascinated with this and took the jar to show it to Bailey so she didn't miss out on seeing it. We spent a lot of time in this room.
Then we headed outside to see the outside exhibits. The receptionist had given us a map and Andie was our guide along with Claude sharing what he learned on his previous visit.
Hayden, with his super-powers of observation, noticed first of any of us that there were footprints in the concrete at the entry to the Butterfly Amphitheater. Andie pulled out the binoculars she brought for the kids and they examined these footprints very carefully.
Then we visited the American Bald Eagle exhibit. Out front of it was a sculpture out of all kinds of metal parts that formed an eagle. Inside was one beautiful, huge, full-grown bald eagle. He sat patiently on the limb in his habitat and watched us watch him. Very regal animal. Miss Bailey again pulled out her 'noculars' to see this majestic bird. The eagle turned his head as if to try and figure out who this very interesting creature was that came to visit him.
Next was the black bear habitat. This is a beautiful enclosure with a stream and pond, trees for the bear to climb, lots of grassy areas. Outside and in front was a big metal bear trap. There was a set of stairs to the observation deck. Under the deck was a bench and a glass window. You could view the area either way. At one end of the deck was a bear paw print out of plaster. Hayden put his hand on top to see how big that paw print was compared to his hand. There was one black bear in the corner cleaning himself and taking it easy.
Then we made our way to the bison/elk habitat. Again we had a nice observation platform to find the animals. This platform even had one of those big binocular like things you usually pay to look through. This one was free. One bison was rolling in the dirt. The elk were gathered under trees to get out of the 92 degree weather we had today. One bull elk had an enormous set of antlers that looked really soft and furry.
Then the mini-Marx's led us down the path to a dirt path through the high growth of grasses and wild flowers. This growth was as tall as me and it was fun to walk through the dirt path between all that growth. The dirt path led to the Dragonfly Marsh. When I was a kid we called a dragonfly a skeeter-hawk because they ate mosquitos. This was a nice marshy pond with a dock into it along one edge. They only had one rope to mark the edge of the dock and I felt sure we were going to lose one of the kids over the edge and into the marsh. We were grateful when they were ready to hike on down the path.
Next we found a stream flowing from a waterfall. This was a man-made waterfall but it was really well done and great fun for the kids. You could walk behind the waterfall and then look back through an opening behind the waterfall. They had constructed a glass wall on the other side behind the waterfall so that you could see all the real fish in the pond. This was a particularly beautiful spot.
Then it was off to find the bobcats. They also had a great habitat with a marshy water feature (it even had a real bullfrog hopping around in it). There were lots of trees and bushes native to Kentucky. We found 2 bobcats napping, one at either end of the habitat. There was also a wooden overlook to see everything from.
A nice park ranger lady came to tell us they were going to bring out an owl and have a talk about owls. We hurried back to the Butterfly Amphitheater and looked at the park ranger hold the owl. Then we determined we should get the mini-Marx's and the older folks back into the air-conditioning. So we headed back inside and roamed around the interior exhibits again.
Before heading out to the car, I found post cards with pictures of all kinds of foot prints of Kentucky animals. Along one side of the card was a ruler. The idea was to take the card with you when hiking in the woods and identify what animal tracks you found. Then you could use the ruler to measure. The inch measurement of an animals footprint was written with the picture of the print and the name of the animal.
Now one of the things we wanted to do was show the kids buffalo (bison) and then take them about 20 miles closer to their home to Buffalo Crossing to eat a buffalo burger. Claude and I had been to this place before and they kept (notice I'm using past tense here...) a herd of buffalo raised to sell buffalo meat. They had a nice selection of other animals. You could buy a ticket and walk through all the animal exhibits and also see the buffalo herd. We caravaned to the location and found what had been Buffalo Crossing. Then we had to explain to Hayden we were not going to get to eat a buffalo burger today. Enter 'plan B'. How about Taco Bell??? Back to Shelbyville we caravaned and had a wonderful lunch at Taco Bell instead of buffalo burgers.
Now Bailey entertained us here. She was sure the little packets full of taco sauce (mild mind you) were packets of ketchup. She started into a chorus of 'Open please, open please, open please, etc.' She wanted to open them and squeeze out the ketchup and eat it. Andie assured her it was for putting on your food and not for eating like that. She also tried to explain it was NOT ketchup but taco sauce. Andie finally squeezed some onto Bailey's taco paper and Bailey dipped her crunchy cinnamon stick dessert things in it and ate it quite happily. Hayden was greatly amused with the sunglasses that came in their kids meals.
After lunch it was time to part ways. The Marx mobile headed home to LaGrange and the Christensen Jeep headed back to Sadieville. What a nice day.
Oh, by the way, you pronounce it Sa-Lay-Toe!!
