Up Close and Uncaged: The Drive-Thru Zoo Experience

The Day I Took a Safari on Four Wheels! My Drive-thru zoo experience.

Nothing says “vacation detour” like pulling off a back road in West Virginia because someone (okay, me) saw a sign that said Drive-Thru Safari Zoo and yelled, “Turn here! We’re doing this!” No time to research, no time to mentally prepare, just a dusty trail, a bag of animal feed, and a car full of very questionable confidence.,

From the moment we rolled through the gates, it was clear: we were on their turf now.

Things started off cute, some deer cautiously approached, a few long-lashed llamas gave us side-eye and kept walking like we weren’t even worth their time. But then came the ostrich. Let me rephrase, a peckish, unhinged, seven-foot-tall dinosaur with feathers.

It strutted right up to the car with dead-eye intensity and pecked the window like it was collecting rent. We all froze. I tried to hold the bag of feed out the window, but immediately chickened out and flung it like a sacrificial offering. That didn’t help. It just made the ostrich more determined. For a terrifying thirty seconds, I was convinced we were about to be charged and pecked into another tax bracket.

But before we could regroup, a zebra came trotting up like it was auditioning for Uber XL. This one? A complete sweetheart. It stuck its whole head in the car, snorted gently like it was just checking in, and then tried to climb in. I wish I were exaggerating. Its front hoof legit made it onto the window frame before we had to sweet-talk it back out with some feed and very shaky laughter. I half-considered just letting it ride shotgun. It felt like a friend. A striped, overly affectionate friend with boundary issues.

Just when we thought things had calmed down—bam.

A buffalo. Correction: the head of a buffalo, because the rest of it couldn’t fit. This creature was the size of a midsize sedan and had zero chill. It wedged its gigantic head into the car window with such force that we were pretty sure the glass was going to pop out. Its breath fogged up the entire side of the car while it stared at us like, “You got snacks or not?”

We tossed feed like we were making offerings to a hungry god. It finally backed off, but not before smearing an ungodly amount of drool all over the inside of the door. And yes, I screamed. Loudly. But in a fun, I-survived-West-Virginia-safari kind of way.

Despite the mild trauma and a car that smelled like a barnyard for the next two hours, I loved it. It was the kind of chaotic, up-close animal experience that sticks with you, where the wild meets the window and personal space means nothing.

So if you ever find yourself cruising through West Virginia and you see a hand-painted sign for a Drive-Thru Zoo pointing down a gravel road… take the turn. Just maybe roll up your windows when you see the ostrich coming.