The animals are not the problem

Today, Cas and I went to Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch.  It's an entirely outdoor facility with animal enclosures and information about the creatures they have housed there.  There are bears, monkeys, lemurs, sloths, kangaroos, camels and tons of other critters.  It was all very interesting, and the animals were quite active.  Typically, if you were to go to the Dallas Zoo, for example, most of the enclosures feature animals large and small, lounging around with not much to do.  At this place, though, the animals were active.  The bears were playing and splashing in a bath.  The lemurs were practically bouncing around.  You can buy a bag of food for $3 and feed certain animals.  Cas and I fed miniature horses and camels.

The only reliably lazy animals the whole time were the lone crocodile and the kangaroos.  They were pretty unimpressed with the visiting humans.  

I don't think I would recommend Sharkarosa to people who are trying to do a good job of social distancing, though.  The animals were fine, but the humans were another story.  Of course, the people who worked there were behaving very well.  They wore masks when interacting with others and stayed appropriately distant, observing good safety protocols, but the clientele was decidedly different.  They huddled together in shaded spaces, sitting nearly on top of one another during presentations.  They stood in the center of walkways, and very few of them wore masks.  As careful as I am when I just go to the grocery store, I am not about to rub elbows (or anything else) with folks who don't feel the need to practice a little bit of what I now regard as common courtesy.  

We were very careful, and more than once, we hung around in a spot we wanted to leave, just to make time for everyone in our path to vacate.  It was pretty frustrating, but the great thing about Cas is that he was on the same page.  Neither of us wanted to walk through a narrow space while someone was coming the other direction.  We may be vigilant at best and paranoid at worst, but we are really trying to get the social distancing right.  When we saw everything we wanted and noticed that more people were coming in the entrance gates, we made our decision to head back to the house.  Sharkarosa is fine, but the humans leave something to be desired.  Since they are not open on weekdays, there is almost no chance we are heading back there until there is a vaccine or a good treatment protocol for the Coronavirus.  After that, we may just enjoy the whole thing.  

Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2XJ3mX7a61qq3KRj7 

If you are interested: https://www.sharkarosa.com/, $24/2 people, $12/2 people with Groupon: https://www.groupon.com/deals/sharkarosa-wildlife-ranch-14