The safari park adjacent to the campsite was extremely good. First of all they had rental cars so we did not need to risk our RV and they had kennels so Pip could stay safe. There were great views of the lions but the stars were probably the Rhinos that wandered very close to the car.
The second part of the park was out of the vehicle. The heat was scorching but luckily they had sprinklers dotted through the park spraying water. We fed the fish and the sheep, talked to the parrots and admired the huge alligators. But the star of the show was undoubtedly feeding the giraffe. You walk up a ramp to an elevated platform that lets you look them in the eye and feed them large lettuce leaves. It is breathtaking to be so close to those beautiful creatures. The giraffe, as the guide told us, has a seventeen inch prehensile tongue and thus could easily take the lettuce from Harriet's hand unlike the bossy sheep who grab and kick you if you are too slow dishing out the goods.
Soon it was time to leave and this was not popular with Miss Lovemason who had had a lovely time and who was rather keen to visit the water park. Still, we persisted and soon she was asleep in her chair - just in time for a stop in Walmart for J.
The journey to the final campsite was to be a different sort of journey, far from the interstates. It involved driving in the interior up long, straight roads, initially through sugar plantations and then alongside the massive Lake Okeechobe. The final stretch moved northwards through scattered small communities before we arrived at our final stop: Lake Kissimmee State Park.
Our site was deep in the park, isolated and beautiful. We enjoyed just sitting out in some less humid heat but some excitement came when Pip, after a period of paying extreme attention, shot into the woods. Soon enough there was a flash of grey and then a flash of white as something moved out of the bush with Pip in pursuit. J shot after it with a camera and called us over - it turned out that the object of Pip's attention was largely indifferent to her because it was an armadillo. It busied itself digging around in the woods before leaving our site for some other activity.
Sad to say the next day came soon enough and we were soon driving back to Orlando and a flight home. The taxi driver who took us to the airport insisted at the end that we must come back, in the Winter at best, and yes we probably will.
