Alsace Stork Reintroduction Center

Since we were down there anyway, we wanted to do something fun. We had originally planned on going to one of the technik museums in Germany, but then we saw a brochure for a wildlife center in Alsace, France. Wildlife + Emma = Happy Girl. Plus, it said something about Le Grand Hamster. So, we went there. It was pretty cool.

Max got some beer. It's brewed down the street from the center

There was a fish petting tank

Em compared to a stork

It's mostly for storks.

Baby storks

It's stork breeding time

But they do have some other animals. Le Grand Hamster, for one. There were several Grand Hamsters, which are very large hamsters. They are pretty common over in Belarus and Ukraine, but they thin out on their way west. Alsace is as far west as they go, and they are endangered there.

Le Grand Hamster

It's a big hamster

We also saw some otters. It was feeding time, so that was fun. They have penguin and seal shows, but we weren't there at the right time for those, and they aren't on display otherwise.

Max & Em are hamsters/otters

There is also a little section in the front for neighborhood sorts of things, with a pigeon house, and insect house, and many birdhouses.

Pigeon house

Insect house

Bird houses

We started home, and I started looking at some of the brochures I had picked up at the wildlife center. There was one for Monkey Mountain. We decided to go. It didn't look like it was too far away from the wildlife center, but we had traveled a bit since then. I had a heck of a time getting the address in the GPS, though. It just didn't show up. But, they gave coordinates, so I put those in. We drove for quite a while. We went through Colmar, where Bartholdi (the designer of the Statue of Liberty) was born, and we saw a replica of the statue.

French barracks are much nicer than any I've lived in

The place it finally dropped us, though, was completely wrong. There was nothing there at all. I tried many other things, but nothing worked. I got another place to work, but it was 45 minutes away, and not on the way home. So, we just decided to go home. It was Max's turn to not feel great, and he didn't want to go on another wild goose chase. Plus, it was raining. We finally got on the freeway and started off. As we got back towards where we would get off to go to the wildlife center, we saw a sign for Monkey Mountain. By then, though, we were all even more cranky, so we just drove on.

We all felt better when we got home and rested.

Emma says - Wildlife thing!!! Ohmygoshitwasawesome! Giant hamsters! Giant storks! Baby storks! They sit funny.