A few weeks ago while my Mom was here we finally made it to visit Oak Mountain State Park, just outside of Birmingham, AL. It was $3 for everyone over 11, $1 for 6-11, so it cost us $ 16 to get into the park. It was about an hour drive from Montgomery. If your an outdoorsy type of person there is lots to do, we just went to check out the Petting farm, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, and the Oak Mountain Interpretive Center. It was an OK visit, it was something to do, but I’m not an outdoorsy type of person so I was kinda underwhelmed. The best part was the kids enjoying the animals at the petting farm!
Bea giving the donkeys some love
Boo was helping the donkey fix his mowhawk 😉
Bub had fun making friends with the goats, who then started following us.
This guy was roaming the petting area, he was really sweet. I loved his stripes.
Saying goodbye to our new friends.
Overall the petting farm was fun for the kids but there were not many animals. Mainly goats and the donkeys. There were some potbellied pigs in a pen but not accessible. I was surprised there were so few animals. Apparently you can rent out the top of the barn for parties, ect, but I’d sure want more animals if I was going to do that. There was also a shetland pony laying down in the back but he looked old and tired so we left him alone.
Then we headed over to the Alabama Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. They had some rescued birds that you could see and information about some of the local wildlife. They also had a baby bird nursery but it was very stinky and there were no baby birds available to be seen. You can walk outside to the building with the hawks, if you don’t mind the Beware of Snakes signs! We did a quick trip out there and got outta there before we happened upon one!
Then we walked over to the Oak Mountain Interpretive Center. There were some small exhibits like a tree frog, snake, and such as well as some educational information. It looked like it was in the process of getting a facelift or some new exhibits added.
There are also walking trails near the buildings, sorry it’s blurry my young photog was behind the lens. We chose not to walk the trails since everyone was starting to get hungry and Hamburger Heaven was calling our names!
Trying to get Bub to smile and cooperate for a picture is not an easy task…
so I had to include one of the ‘outtakes’ 🙂
Overall we had a good time hanging out and looking around but it wouldn’t be on my list of places that we just have to visit again. I am glad we checked it out before we left, because I don’t like having something on my list and not making it there! ;p My kids (especially the younger 2) love animals so anytime they get to hang out and pet animals its a good day, the petting farm was the highlight by far. Now if you like hiking, canoeing, and all that outdoor stuff then your headed to the right place!
Leave a Reply