We're Sleeping by the Tigers

There's nothing like waking up to the roar of a lion! When we pulled into our parking spot for the night, we knew we were going to have interesting neighbors!

We're staying at Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge. This is our second camping spot using our new Harvest Host membership. It includes a no-hookup site in the parking lot of the Vet Center of the animal sanctuary.

When staying with a harvest host, campers are asked to purchase about $20 in products from the host. In this case, we purchased $20 in admission tickets into the wildlife refuge to see their animals.

That's actually a bargain, because all the occupants of the RV get in for that $20. It would be a great value for families traveling with children, and the kids would love seeing these cats. We know that the kids living in our RV certainly enjoyed it.

The welcome sign out front mentions that they have been featured on shows like "Animal Planet" and "National Geographic Wild."

Tiger Creek didn't set out for such notoriety. They started with humble beginnings, taking in large cats that needed to be rescued from unfortunate circumstances. Each enclosure has a sign with the name and story of the animal. For instance, this is Padma and Skanda. They were brought here from Florida, when their facility suffered major damage in a hurricane and was forced to shut down.

Tiger Creek seems to focus on tigers, with 17 of them scattered throughout the park. This is a white bengal tigers--not to be confused with an albino tiger. Since she was raised here, she used to spend time at the gift shop, playing with the staff and interns.

They also have a rare white lioness. Luna is one of only 300-500 white lions in the entire world. They are endangered because they are especially attractive to poachers and trophy hunters.

It was interesting to watch these big cats. They have habits and mannerisms that remind us of the domestic cats we used to have at home.

The only other lion is on the far end of the facility. Even though we walked all the sidewalks and visited all the enclosures twice, we never did get a great picture of Max the Lion.

Our favorite cat was Raja. We walked by his enclosure several times. Each time, he came to be closer to us. Mark did notice that the first time he was in a crouched position, staying low like he was stalking his prey. 

You actually get quite close to the animals, even though we were separated by two fences. Raja would eventually lay down close to the fence beside us. That's when we got this close-up picture of the back of his ears. We didn't know that all tigers have these signature white spots on their ears. It makes them look like they have eyes on the back of their heads.

This six-month-old cub is new to Tiger Creek, and still looks like a pudgy kitten when compared to the sleek adult tigers.

Tiger Creek will also take in other cats, like this serval. We also saw a puma, a bobcat, and a mountain lion.

A few disabled birds also call Tiger Creek home. Not able to survive on their own because of injuries, they will live out their lives here.

Denisa even snapped this picture of a bird that was just visiting on the chain link fence today.

The last category of animals we found were several of these land turtles.

We were there during their feeding time, and we can tell you that these slow turtles certainly picked up speed when the greens were laid out. Who ever thinks that a turtle is slow has never seen them devour a salad!

It was a peaceful camping spot, followed by a fun day visiting the animals at Tiger Creek. This is a place where we normally wouldn't have stopped, but we certainly are glad that Harvest Host gave us a nudge to sleep by the tigers.