Kickin' it in SA: Natural Bridge Caverns and Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch

Last weekend, my parents came into town for Will's birthday. To celebrate, we decided to go and do something we've been wanting to do since we moved to San Antonio: the Natural Bridge Caverns and Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch (which are about a half hour outside of San Antonio). And they did not disappoint! The caverns, especially, were absolutely incredible. My pictures of the caverns do not do them justice. It was amazing to me that such wondrous geological structures could exist, let alone exist underground right outside San Antonio! 

The entire tour (we took the basic Discovery Tour) was just over an hour, but it did not seem that long; I could have spent much longer down there (that is if Clara hadn't been with us . . . she missed her nap and was not a happy camper!) They also offer several other tours, one of which lets you crawl, climb, and rappel through the caverns. I thought that sounded like a lot of fun, under the right circumstances . . . like not being pregnant and not having toddlers with us! But there is definitely something for everyone!

Check out our pictures and keep reading to hear about the safari we went on afterwards :)

Outside the caverns, they also offered a Canopy Challenge (which looked like a ropes course) and zip lines. Had I not been pregnant, we would have been very tempted to give this a try! But, we did let Will go on the Canopy Kids course, which looked kinda dinky, but actually was perfect and a lot of fun for our little 4 year old. 

While not necessarily cheap, in my humble opinion, the Natural Bridge Caverns were definitely worth experiencing at least once before leaving the San Antonio area!

After the caverns, we drove next door to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. This "ranch" was actually an exotic animal, drive-through safari. Which, funnily enough, is not that uncommon here in Texas! Or at least San Antonio, I don't really know about other areas . . . Anyway, since living here just over a year, this was actually our third drive-through safari! Kind of weird? Yeah. But still cool :)

This safari was more expensive than the others we've been on, but it was definitely the best one by far. They also had picnic areas, a petting zoo, and animals of which you could walk around and see.

The safari started had everything from giraffes, to deer, longhorns, rhinos, ostriches, alpacas, and zebras. It was really fun to throw food out to the animals and see them so closely. Will was in heaven; he loved every minute!

Oh, and the animals wander leisurely wherever they want--even in between cars in the middle of the road! This made for slow driving, but was great for close-up pictures!

Looking for more fun things to do with kids in San Antonio? Check out my other "Kickin it in SA" posts here, here, here, and here!