(click here for today's pictures)
It was another good day-and when you are cuddled up under some blankets in the bed before 10, I would say that it was a very good day. The morning started with Robby making chocolate chip pancakes and sausages for our breakfast. Anderson was in charge of the scrambled eggs. Breakfast was certainly yummy, and it probably made it even better that the Crafts came over to eat theirs with us.
Once breakfast was over, we walked to the next campsite-the campers there had already pulled out. The alligator was across the pond, but as he saw us, he slowly crept our direction. He was about 4 feet long and didn't really seem interested in us. My big boys pulled out their fishing poles, and then the Crafts did as well. No one caught anything, but the kids all enjoyed fishing-you would have thought that the alligator might have liked our bait-hot dogs!
The next thing that we did was take a short walk down to the river. It was a sandy trail, but it was neat to see the different plant life than we have at home. We weren't able to walk too long, because we had to pull out at noon.
Campbell and Keaton rode with the Crafts, and the rest of us just rode in our van. We had about a 30 minute drive to the Global Wildlife Center. We have been there twice before-and the pictures from last time just make it look amazing. So we were a bit concerned that it would be as fun to the kids as we had remembered it being.
It was! The first trip there I bought a bucket of food. The next time we bought a 50 pound bag of food and this time, we shared a 17 gallon bin with the Crafts. There was plenty of food to feed the animals. We did run out near the end, but there was enough pieces on the ground of the tram for the kids to pick up and use.
As you are driven along, all of the animals rush to the tram. I believe that they said that had 1200 deer-and it seemed like most of them followed us during the one and a half hour trip. There were deer, zebras (which you could not feed), llamas, alpacas, bison, lots of other animals that I don't know their names and most importantly giraffes.
When we were at the giraffe stop, it took a super long time for the giraffes to make it to our car. When they did, the kids loved getting to feed them. And just as Reagan did 5 years ago when we were here, she gave a giraffe a kiss this time as well. We were starting to think that the giraffes wouldn't make it to us, but thankfully they did.
It was so much fun. Robby and I aren't big animal people, but we really do enjoy the animal tour. I think the kids will really remember it for a long time too! After it was over, we said our goodbyes to the Crafts. They were heading back to Little Rock. We had toyed with that idea too, but we decided to stay and enjoy one more night before coming back to reality.
When we made it back to this state park, Bogue Chitto, we drove around for a little bit since we were in the van. We found a splash pad with a huge water slide. Imagine Campbell's surprise as she was inspecting it when we told her to go ahead and do it. Campbell, Keaton and Whitman slid over and over again. It must have been a little bit too cold for Graham because he only did it once.
Since Campbell, Keaton and Whitman were soaking wet, they had to ride in the back of the van back to the campsite. So Graham rode Whitman's bike back to our site. It took him a while, but that just warmed him up because afterwards, he went with Anderson, Campbell and Keaton on a bike ride on one of the trails. They thought that they went about 3 or 4 miles.
Soon it was time for us to start on supper. Tonight's meal was bbq that Robby had made it home along with fried potatoes which is Jennifer's recipe. It was all perfect-until I ate the last tiny bit of BBQ and Whitman asked for some more. Thankfully, he was happy with some cheese on a bun-which he later said was his favorite part of the entire trip. It is the little things!
After supper, we watched some of a movie outside before breaking down camp. Robby wants to leave fairly early in the morning so we loaded up the van, put everything away outside and are sleeping with the slides in. It was pretty chilly tonight (and is still even in the camper), so we headed inside to finish our movie.
While we were watching the movie, we pulled out the Blue Bell that had been in our fridge for a few days waiting to be eaten. We probably would have gone home today, but we still had that ice cream! Ha! It was a good end to our trip. The kids were all asleep by 10:30-this camping stuff can be exhausting!
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