SD Wild Animal Park has Photo Caravan Tours to take guests out into the animal enclosures in small trucks. This gives you an opportunity to be in the small confined space and the feeling of being in the animal's world rather than the other way around.

We had a guide in our truck to answer questions and give a little more insight into the animals and their behaviors. She also was there to ensure the animals were safe. The hardest rule for us...do NOT pet the giraffe. After she distributed little moist towlettes to clean our hands, she showed us how to feed the giraffe.

Some giraffe are impatient and decide to take matters into their own hands. Those necks sure come in handy.

Andrew to Andrew: "Dude, don't look now but there's a giraffe behind you."

Giraffe to Andrew "Dude, can you just hand me a few acacia leaves, please? They are right there in the bucket."

And then the party started. These were very young giraffe and tended to be much less wary than the adults.

And can get a little pushy if you're not careful. Can you see why the no petting rule is really, really hard to follow?

Andrew's turn.

If audio existed, all you would hear is Andrew giggling.

Michael tries his hand at feeding. Giraffe have really long tongues and very sticky saliva that is meant to protect them from the long thorns that accompany acacia trees and leaves that they eat.

The saliva gets on your hands...it is yucky. Thankfully, there are moist towlettes for all.

Andrew's  really not so sure about giraffe. He was convinced one of them was going to puke on him.

The enclosure contained many animals that would typically be living in close proximity on the savannah. These are white rhino. They can only see approximately 25 feet. In this photo, they could hear our truck, but not see us. They're standing in a defensive posture in response.

The same three rhino in a more relaxed position.

Not sure what these birds are, but I thought they were very pretty. And some mornings, my hair kinda resembles what they've got going on.

When these birds are born, they surgically remove a tiny bone in their wings so they cannot fly away. This is far less stressful than collecting them and clipping wings every 3 to 4 months.

This was a nasty ostrich that would follow the truck and do a head bobbing, gulping kind of maneuver. We were all afraid of her. She definitely wanted us to leave.

And this was the end of our trip.