Safari West Holiday: Father's Day Beer Brunch

Brews and beasties fill out the just-before-summer Sunday.

BEASTIES AND BEVERAGES: Animal parks aren't typically the spot one would expect to find a grown-up libation. Rather, one expects all manner of ice-filled slushies and ice cream floats and ice cream-flavored sodas and any liquid refreshment that somehow has ice cream as a base or theme. But adults like seeing animals, too, and they like doing so on holidays designed to celebrate their parental role. Zoos and preserves see a lot of visitors come Mother's and Father's Days, which surely is due in large part to the warmer springtime weather (we know, Father's Day is practically summer, but we'll still call it late spring, to be all official-like). Safari West, while very kid-focused, is good about thinking parentally on those days, and Father's Day will be something of a treat. That is, if you like beer, and like barbecue, and like seeing magnificent animals such as rhinos and giraffes. It's the annual Father's Day Beer Brunch at the expansive Santa Rosa park. Oh, the date? You bet it is the third Sunday in June, as always, which is June 15 in 2014.

ROARS AND MORE: You can go with just the all-inclusive Beer Brunch package -- and, yep, there's a ticket for the kids -- or you can hop on the morning or afternoon African Queen Tours, which include the brunch. You'll get to see a lot of the preserve, including "giraffes, cheetahs, lemurs, and much more!" Yeah, we'd have some issues leaving the lemurs, though we want to linger with all the animals. Cost for the tour and brunch? Seventy bucks per adult.

WORLD GIRAFFE DAY: That auspicious occasion happens on the following Saturday, June 21. Love your 'raffes something fierce? Learn more about it. It's the first day of summer, too, which feels like a fitting time to honor this long-of-neck, big-of-spirit, spotted-of-hide beauty.

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