Junior’s Adventures

Many years ago, my BFF and I took our girl scout troop on one of their year-end trips and our destination was the vacation home of one of our scouts. It became our home base as we engaged in different day activities. One of those was the YO Ranch in Central Texas. It is quite a fancy place today, but back then it was a taste of the Old West combined with an African wildlife adventure. It was an opportunity for our girls to see up close and personal many exotic animals they had never seen before. It was fun!

We went dam sliding, horseback riding, floating in tubes on the Guadalupe River while eating watermelon, enjoyed outdoor theatre presentations and just thoroughly savored an escape to a paradise in Ingram Texas.

Roaming throughout the 27,000 acre YO working ranch were giraffes, deer, and mountain goats to name a few. One of the main attractions of the YO Ranch back then was their Ostrich and Emu population. The day we visited and bounced around in trucks touring the property, we were allowed out of the vehicle to walk around. I most remember the open prairie with a few scattered trees throughout. I don’t remember a whole lot about why we were walking around, but we suddenly became aware of our guide yelling at us to run toward one of the trees. We took off running and glancing around we understood why. Romping quickly toward us at a rapid pace was a huge Ostrich and he was closing fast. We reached the tree and stayed there as our guide drove the truck over to us and shooed Junior away.

Why is this Junior’s Adventure? Time passed and Junior was a fond memory of happy times spent with our scouts. One day while reading the newspaper, we discovered that Junior had moved on from the YO Ranch to be a junkyard guard bird. We knew he was aggressive since we had personally experienced it and apparently he was better suited to guarding junk than roaming around the ranch attacking paying guests. I am sure he lived a happy life doing what he liked to do best….terrifying people!

Happy bird searching!!!