Lewis Adventure Farm and Zoo, September 2025, part 1

My love of petting zoos started very early.

I have always loved to pet animals. This is nothing new to me. But the sheer joy I feel when I pet an animal is ridiculous. Especially when I see the photos of me while I’m petting the animals. Like, I don’t think I smile that big except for when I am petting an animal.

So what to do when the world is chaos? Go pet some animals. I did this by going to a place a kept seeing on my Instagram Feed called The Lewis Adventure Farm and Zoo. They also have a waterpark (splash pad?) area but I went on the first weekend they reopened for fall so all of that was very closed.

In their ad they always mentioned their special programs to pet various wildlife so I decided to splurge…with the Capybara Experience. When I tell you it was the highlight of my entire 2025, I am not exaggerating. I cannot think of this little daytrip without getting a big smile on my face and just being in a better mood thinking about it. It’s like my cure for depression and anxiety. I got to pet capybaras! Whenever the photos pop up at home I get a little jolt of serotonin.

When I scheduled our appointment with the capybaras, I chose the earliest time I could get and we also went on a Friday to avoid the Saturday and Sunday crowd and that really worked out in our favor, we were the only ones in the experience and it wasn’t too hot yet so it was pleasant to hang out in the sun with the capys, feeding them their breakfast and petting them.

The two capybaras we got to hang out with were Velma and Scooby Doo and they were a breeding pair that haven’t had babies yet, so fingers crossed for them. I knew capybara's were big but it is surreal to see a rodent of that size (ROUS’s?) . We followed the caretaker out into the yard with plates full of vegetables and sat on some benches in their enclosure where each of the capybaras essentially chose one of us and got handfed their first meal of the day. Velma chose me and Scooby chose my partner. As we broke the food into smaller pieces to make the experience last as long as possible the caretaker told us all sorts of fun facts about them and how to act and move around them. She emphasized that the movement we make or noises we do could scare them back into their inner-enclosure because they are prey animals and will run from what they perceive as threats. I think it’s crazy that they are that big and are still considered prey animals.

Velma was hilarious. Anytime I was moving too slow feeding her she would show me her GIGANTIC front teeth, which I was told she does that because she thinks it makes her look cute and she gets more treats that way and she’s right, she’s super cute and she was going to get my entire plate. She was very chill as I fed her and pet her head and back. What I found surprising is how roughly textured a capybara is. Whenever I’ve seen pictures of them they look so soft and fluffy but that could not be further from the truth…they feel like wire scrub brushes. Now to be honest, this was vaguely disappointing because I was thinking this was going to be a giant chinchilla experience but they were so cute up close that it didn’t really matter.

Velma and I really vibed during our little encounter together. Apparently she is the more skittish of the two and she trusted me enough where, when she was done eating, she plopped onto her side and let me get one good belly scratch in, which the caretaker was very impressed as she said Velma never does that. Cue me feeling special.

After that last scratch both Velma and Scooby bid adieu to us unceremoniously and just went inside to chill and with that our encounter was over. We washed up and then headed out to the rest of the park.