San Antonio Travel and Leisure Guide 2008 - (Page 34) Texas-Sized Thrills The Texas Hill Country offers plenty of caves for underground exploration. One of the most spectacular is Natural Bridge Caverns, carved millions of years ago. views of hippos and Nile crocodiles. The miniature train, nearby in the park, is a big hit with kids. Take an African safari, Texas-style, at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. You can view, photograph and feed zebras, giraffes and more than 500 animals from 40 species of native, exotic and endangered wildlife, right from the comfort of your vehicle. The ranch covers 400 acres of gorgeous Texas Hill Country and includes a learning center, petting zoo and gift shop. The Texas Hill Country offers plenty of caves for underground exploration as well. One of the most spectacular is Natural Bridge Caverns, a vast limestone cavern carved millions of years ago by underground water. Travel through a half-mile of huge underground chambers decorated with formations like long “soda straw” stalactites, waves of “cave ribbon” and hanging “chandeliers.” Test your climbing skills on the manmade Watchtower while you’re hitched to a zip line. For even more thrills, special adventure tours guided by experienced staff members let you crawl, climb, hike, rappel and explore the caverns’ natural beauty for yourself. Go underground and discover the nation’s only true example of an earthquake-formed cave at Wonder World Park. Visitors have toured this Balcones Fault Line for more than 100 years. In the topsy-turvy Anti Gravity House, everything is backwards – even water flows uphill! IF YOU GO (as referenced in text) Natural Bridge Caverns, 210-651-6101, naturalbridgecaverns.com Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, 830-438-7400, wildliferanchtexas.com San Antonio Zoo and Aquarium, 210-734-7183, sazoo-aq.org Wonder World Park, 512-392-3760, wonderworldpark.com For complete listings, visitsanantonio.com INTERACTIVE MUSEUMS & BREATHTAKING DISPLAYS Kids play to learn and adults learn to play at the San Antonio Children’s Museum, which offers three floors of activities for children ages 2 to 12. They can put on a hard hat and drive a kid-sized front-end loader, pretend to be pilots on an imaginary flight, zoom to the top of the museum’s Tower of the Americas in a kid-powered elevator, see how the human skeleton moves when you ride a bike, or explore a kid-friendly cave. This is one museum where kids are encouraged to touch everything! The Witte Museum is another kid-friendly spot with exhibits to wow the whole family as well. Children can explore the lives of prehistoric creatures in Dino Hall and unravel the mysteries behind mummies, then learn about science while playing in the H-E-B Science Treehouse – a real two-story treehouse overlooking the San Antonio 34 VISITSANANTONIO COM O. http://naturalbridgecaverns.com http://wildliferanchtexas.com http://sazoo-aq.org http://wonderworldpark.com http://visitsanantonio.com http://visitsanantonio.com
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