After living in Texas for over 5 years, my husband finally agreed on a weekend trip to New Braunfels. We didn’t go to see a pretty landscape (which it is) or to indulge in some outlet shopping (which we did). I wanted to go to visit the Sophienburg Museum, a German-Texan heritage and immigration collection, where I figured I could find some good genealogy data. Unfortunately, the archives building was closed because we visited on the weekend. Not that the museum web site notes that particular detail, but oh well! I was still able to discover that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Johann Matthias Kreitz, is considered a founding father of New Braunfels. Kinda cool! Someday I’ll get around to reposting my genealogy research on this web site.
On Saturday, we decided to visit the Natural Bridge Caverns and Wildlife Ranch. Now, I’m a desert rat who has enjoyed several trips to Carlsbad Caverns, so I was skeptical about this site. For one thing, it costs a lot more than Carlsbad, which is a bigger attraction. Carlsbad is a National Park, which probably keeps the prices down. Natural Bridge Caverns is privately owned.
We opted for the North Cavern Tour, which took about an hour and a half. It was a good tour. Be warned, when you walk in, it’s a bit like a sauna, especially if it’s cool outside. The ambient temperature is about 70 degrees, but add about 99% humidity to that, and you’re gonna be sweating in about 30 seconds flat! Tour guides are usually a hit-or-miss proposition, but we had a decent fellow. A little cheeky, but he knew a lot about the caverns and related geology.
The Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch was our next stop. I was looking forward to it, as I had never been to a safari-style park where animals roam freely and you can feed them from your car. As we drove in, the gate attendant advised us to remove our antenna ball as it’s a prime target. I wouldn’t mind losing my antenna ball as it’s faded into an unrecognizable blob. I just didn’t want to be responsible for a sick ostrich!
As we gathered our bags of feed, Nathan warned me, “Watch out for the ostriches. They’ll stick their heads all the way in the car and grab things.” Suitably warned, I drove into the park while Nathan took pictures.
As the first sight of an ostrich, I started panicking. As soon as an ostrich headed toward my side of the car, I’d roll up the windows. All I could see was that beak flying towards my face! Of course, Nathan had great fun teasing me about my new-found phobia of ostriches. Little did he know that the universe was planning my revenge…
We continued through the park and came upon a herd of zebras. These zebras certainly are trained by now–they know a new car means new snacks. It was like being in the vortex of a dozen circling sharks! As I’m sitting there happily chunking feed pellets out the window, watching as the zebras snatched them up as soon as they hit the ground, I hear a panicked yelp from Nathan.
I turn around and there’s a zebra head where Nathan should be. I had visions of the zebra plucking our nice new digital SLR camera out of the car. I yell, “The camera! The camera! Give me the camera!”
By now, the zebra has shoved his head all the way in the car and is resting his head on Nathan’s lap. As the zebra rolls back his lips and starts chomping his teeth, I realize he’s going for the feed bag that’s sitting between the two front seats. But Nathan fears something else. He’s pushing back in the seat yelling, “My nuts! My nuts! Get him out of here!!”
The zebra finally finds what he’s looking for–he grabs the feed bag and starts his retreat. I grab the bag back and toss some feed out the moonroof and away from the car. Nathan, still winded from his near death experience, rolls up his window and mutters, “Well, let’s get going.”
That night when my sister asked how our day was, I say, “Oh just fine, but Nathan was molested by a zebra.” 
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