Connors in Doha: Shell Factory and Babcock Ranch

Friday, December 16, 2011

Shell Factory and Babcock Ranch

The Shell Factory is a bizarre little store that, as was explained to us by some of the locals, is a relic of the 60’s road trip attractions. The main part of the store sells shells from all over the world made into neat little trinkets and Florida souvenirs. The rest of the store is a mish mash of whatever was likely the newest fad at the time. They had a pirate room, a petting zoo, a dinosaur path, bumper boats and likely other things we didn’t get a chance to discover. Jaydon loved the reptile exhibit and we just happened to arrive just at the beginning of the 1 hour time slot where they let you hold the animals.

Jaydon thought this was great and we ended up staying there the entire hour (only 1 other family came in while we there). After it was time put the lizards away we found the goats at the petting zoo.

I must have fed about $5 worth of quarters into the goat food machines and we had to tear Jaydon away to go see the dinosaurs.

He loved the silly goats and made sure that every single one got a few bits of food from his hands. The dino path was a bunch of ‘life’ size paper mache dinosaurs hidden in the greenery.

Tylor and Aunt Patricia enjoyed the walk and Jaydon kept trying to figure out where the dino noises were coming from because it was obviously not from the dinosaurs.

We also visited the Babcock Ranch which is a working ranch that also gives tours. They loaded us onto a camo painted bus and we ventured into the wilds of Florida to see what animals there were to spot.

We were visited by some beautiful cranes.

But the funniest were the wild Turkeys.

I never realized how colorful these birds are until they were up close and you could see their iridescent feathers. The driver was feeding them so the chased the bus a good half mile or so.