SARA DYER - WORDS. SURF. IRREVERENCE.

We had three options on our trip from Tucson to Sedona. We could drive straight there—3-4 hours. We could stop at the Biosphere or Ostrich Ranch. And the third option was to hike Camelback Mountain which would break the trip up well. We decided on Option 4: checking out the ostrich ranch and trying to squeeze the hike up Camelback in, on La Cholla Trail.
The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch is strategically placed right off Route 10. It planted a seed in our brains when we drove to Tucson, and it was an easy stop on the way back. According to it's pamphlet it has been voted one of the “Best Roadside Attractions in America!” and my God, they were right.
What do you want to do?
You want to feed cownose stingrays? Done.
You want to stroke the brow of nibbly donkeys? Done.
You want to fling your arms out gently and have lorikeets land on your head and arms to suck the nectar out of a cup? Done.
”Here’s your cups,” the woman at the front said. “Go through the gates and watch the movie before you feed the animals.” Inside the cups were large green pellets, a wooden coffee stirrer with bird seed coated on one side, a cup with tokens and a small capped cup of liquid. The movie explained well who we were to feed what to, as did the myriad signs within the ranch. I appreciated this. This shit was locked up tight.
First, we go to the donkeys, with their quivering lips and their big deep eyes. Then the fallow deer—so gentle and laconic, their backs dappled with snowy white.
Then, things got interesting.
”Goat penthouse?” we asked.
Up perhaps fifteen to twenty feet in the air was just that: A goat penthouse. There must have been ten to fifteen goats just hanging out.
”I don’t know how I feel about this,” said every hipster ever who visited, including me. Hence, the sign explaining in detail how “the goats literally race one another out of their pen to get to the goat penthouse every morning, because they love sitting up high.”
Life is so strange.
It was magical. Ostriches craned their necks for their pellets, their dinosaur-like feet enormous, holding up their large beautiful bodies. Then there were bunnies, ducks, chickens, lorikeets. Feeding the duck was an act of faith. “Just hold your hand like a fist with a small opening, and the pellet inside the fist.” Oh ya? I thought. Just that? But I sallied up and did it. And it was nothing. They had no teeth, and they were laser-focused. I liked their cool smooth beaks.
Inside the lorikeet exhibit, we walked in with our cups of nectar, keeping one hand covering up the cup until we were ready. “You don’t need to take the cap off,” the man in charge of the exhibit said. “They’ll do it for you.” We nodded, and walked to the middle of the exhibit. We looked at him. “Ok then,” he said.
Flashes of green, blue, red and purple came from everywhere and landed on our arms. I had fed lorikeets before, in Carolina Beach at an exhibit. I remembered their strange tongues like cylinders, and how bossy they can be. They were beautiful.
The guy manning the exhibit lived next door. According to him, apparently Ozzy Osbourne stopped at the ranch recently intending to spend only a bit of time there. “Can we spend the whole day here?” he asked. Ozzy, I get it.
This place was heaven on earth.
The last thing we did was put our hands in the water of the cownose rays. Their backs are so smooth. I kept trying to work up the courage to let their strange mouths suck on my fingers (what they do if they think you’ve got food) but I chickened out every time. But hey, it’s always good to leave a reason to go back.