Pitstop at a Roadside Zoo

The drive from Denver to Kansas City is 8.5 hours if you can drive it straight with no stops for gas or bathroom breaks which is clearly impossible, especially with two energetic kids.  About halfway through the drive we were looking for something to break up the monotony of Interstate 70.  Then outside of Oakley, Kansas we saw the signs:

This and signs like it for 5 and 6 legged cows drew us is.

We knew we had to stop so we anxiously pulled over.  Here's what we saw when we pulled up.

It's not just a movie anymore. 

The Grand Entrance

Prairie Dog Town owner.

$28 later and we had admission to this once in a lifetime experience (and two small bags of milk bones that we were instructed to feed to anything – except the 40 rattlesnakes).

The snakes cage is kept free of flies due to two large spiders that have webs

Prairie dog holes were scattered around the grounds.

Many of the holes had fresh cut grass to feed the prairie dogs

Tag about to feed the peacocks (a milkbone)

Elle feeding a goat.  She was scared it would bite her so she put the food on a pan she found.

A big cage of pigeons.  More zoos should have these in captivity.

Tag enjoyed teasing the goats.  He kept acting like he was throwing food over the fence.  He finally gave up when they never went for it.

6 Legged Cow (the two on the back are from a stillborn twin)

THE WORLD’S LARGEST PRAIRIE DOG – yes, this was it

Back inside there was a gift shop where you could purchase a wide variety of taxidermy items.

Before leaving I chatted with the owner who told me that he and his wife have been running Prairie Dog Town for 44 years and they are looking to retire so they decided to sell it a few years ago.  So far they’ve had no takers.  They started at $500K (animals included) and the price is now down to $300K.  Act fast if you are interested before he sells it to developers (apparently a few motels and a restaurant are all interested in the land).

We ended up buying one thing at the gift shop, a bumper sticker for the car top carrier.  Unfortunately the sticky stuff did not hold and it flew off somewhere on I-70.

The one and only pic of our momento