Wild Wilderness Safari... Arkansas style!

Instead of taking a return trip to a S. African safari, we decided to do a safari... in Arkansas!

En route to the Gentry Zoo, we took a brief detour through downtown Gentry.

This place was poppin'! Um... not really. For a Saturday afternoon, we were trying to figure out where everyone was.

... as you can see, it wasn't exactly difficult to find street parking.

We also passed some pretty interesting (read: scary) hotels. This one reminded us a bit of the Bates Motel...

... that's five-star right there!

We finally made it to the Gentry Zoo sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It was beautiful, and sunny, and the animals were out and about!

These zebras were the opposite of shy... they came right up to our car windows...

... probably because all the people riding through were throwing bread out of the windows.

This little fella was more than happy with his "score". He sat in the middle of the gravel road chomping on his bread, oblivious to the cars that were passing mere inches away from him!

This pig got up close and personal with yours truly, not knowing that we all had bacon for brunch (yum!)...

These goats believe that the grass really is greener on the other side...

Jaime had some fun with some friendly 'Roos (shout to Web's sister, Roo!)...

This tiger seemed bored by all the fuss...


Other dudes spent their time munchin' away on cabbage and lettuce heads...

All in all, it was a fun day at the zoo.

On our way home, we decided to hit up Mama Dean's Soul Food Kitchen for some more fried chicken and good 'ol Southern cookin'!

Unfortunately, Mama Dean needs to work on her "signage". We passed by her restaurant at least 3-4 times on the same road...

... as you can see, Mama Dean never replaced the old sign, Mr. Burger, with her sign! The little placard behind the pick-up was Mama Dean's sign... kind of hard to see when you're driving along the main road in the middle of nowhere!

We finally found our way and helped ourselves to some super-yummy fried chicken, good mashed "pots", ribs and chicken fried steak.

Towards the end of our meal, we were graced by Mama Dean herself and she was kind enough to take a picture with Web, despite the fact that he was sporting his yankee gear: black v-neck and pink polo. She knew right away that "y'all not from around here"!