In the search of elks

As I am living now in elk-country, time was ripe to see some real elks. The only elks I saw so far had been lying on the ground in Skansen (an open-air museum in Stockholm), sleepy and lazy, and I didn't get the chance to actually see them in full size. And it's not like they were running around here everywhere in the countryside, even though I might have assumed this before I first came to Sweden... ;-)
Therefore we decide to make an excursion to Kolmården which is the largest zoo in Skandinavia and 150km south of Stockholm.
They have a regular zoo-section there and a part where you can drive through with your own car - the safari park.
We get a ticket, read the safety instructions and soon we are on our safari ride. First we enter the section with the Skandinavian animals....but what's up here? All elks and deers are lying on the ground. We stop for a while thinking about how we could activate the lazy bunch... but then another elk appears in front of us. It approaches the others and all of a sudden all the others jump up and move around. Finally - several elks in full size and so close!! We sit in the car, excited like children and watch the scene. One elk even crosses the road right in front of us and yes, they are really huge, and beautiful, at least I think so. They have a very pretty head with big eyes and a sweet soft nose.
The ride through the safari park continues being adventurous. We pass the animals of the Savannah where a giraffe nearly manages to stick her head in our car, we pass a bunch of sleeping lions lying one meter away from the car and we drive through the part with the big brown bears and the wolves.
After our safari we stroll through the zoo and visit the rhinos, penguins and the monkeys and we watch a dolphin show. It's a nice day and the weather keeps up until the end so that we just manage to get back to the car before it starts to rain.

I was seeing elks - in full size. Mission completed :-)