We took the grandkids to Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, FL (near West Palm Beach). It has an attached KOA Campground. Aaron dropped the grandkids off at 9:00AM EST. They helped us finish packing the camper and we managed to depart by 10:08AM EST. It was a four hour drive so Beth packed a picnic lunch so we could stop and let the kids stretch their legs. On the way over we took the route over the North side of Lake Okeechobee and down the East side on US-98 (SR-674 -> CR-39 -> SR-62 -> US-17 -> SR-66 -> US-98). We stopped for lunch at a Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) boat ramp and campsite along the Istokpoga Canal which was nearly half way to our campground. We had a nice lunch and the kids ran off to the boat ramp to look at the canal. After lunch, Beth broke out three old cell phones that she had loaded with games to keep the kids entertained. For the most part, we never heard from them again until we reached the campground. The drive along the East side of Lake Okeechobee on US-98 wasn’t the smoothest and had a lot of construction that brought the road down to one lane in several spots, so we decided that we would take a different route on the trip home.
We arrived at the West Palm Beach / Lion Country Safari KOA at 2:30PM and set up camp. We arrived on fumes so once the truck was unhooked from the camper, Beth ran off to the local 7-Eleven for fuel. We didn’t want to risk running out of fuel in the middle of the safari the next day. The campground roads were paved, the sites are grass, but each site has a nice cement pad with picnic table and full hookups. The campground Wi-Fi was excellent, so we never fired up our AT&T hotspot nor our Dish satellite. We streamed what little television we watched (including Purdue’s victory over Minnesota Thursday night). We were able to hear the lions roar several times throughout the evening.
On Friday we entered Lion Country Safari when it opened at 9:30AM EST. We purchased discounted tickets from the campground at check-in and were told that it was best to arrive when the park opens to catch the animals when they are most active. It took us about 90 minutes to drive through the safari and we had good views of all of the animals. The driving tour ends in the parking lot of the amusement park portion of the facility, so we went in and fed the giraffes, visited the petting zoo, and road the several rides they had available. We ate a rather expensive lunch in the amusement park, but the kids ate like we’d starved them. It’s good they did because then we went home and changed into our swimming duds and took them to the attached water park where they burned a lot of energy. They enjoyed the zoo, but the really enjoyed the water park. Because it was a Friday, it wasn’t very crowded and they could try every slide they wanted to repetitively.
When we got back to the camper, a new family arrived across the street and it wasn’t long before they were playing with our kids. Their son was seven years old and spent the most time with our kids. Occasionally, his nine your old sister would join. His eleven year old sister was not interested, but both sisters were good at helping keep track of whole crew.
On Saturday, we just hung out at the campground. After breakfast we took the kids up to the KOA heated pool for a couple of hours. They were still tired from their day at the amusement park and didn’t fight us at all when we left the pool and went back to the camper. They spent the afternoon riding their bikes and patiently waiting for the neighbor kids to return from a baseball tournament. While they were waiting the kids started challenging us to a game of Truth or Dare. I always take “Truth” to avoid leaving my chair, but they always take “Dare”, so Beth and I started sending them on little journeys around the campground to build up their navigation skills. They really enjoyed that. Eventually the neighbors returned and the kids played together until their family sat down to eat supper around 8:30PM EST. At that point we retired inside the camper for the evening.
It rained all day Sunday, but Mother Nature was kind enough to provide us with a small break in the weather at the time we needed to leave. We packed everything we could the night before (including dumping our tanks) due to the forecast. We departed around 10:00AM EST. For the return, we followed US-98 along the South side of Lake Okeechobee to Belle Glade and then picked up US-27 and followed it North to SR-70. We stopped at the Walmart in Arcadia so that the kids could have a bathroom break and eat some lunch. The rain was coming down so hard we decided to fuel up so that we could park under the awning long enough to take the kids back to the camper bathroom while fueling. It’s a good thing we did. A gentleman pointed out to Beth that one of our bicycles was about to fall off the bike rack at the back of the camper. We managed to get it tied back down, but we got fairly wet. We all ate in the truck while we continued home. It only took a couple of hours with a shop vacuum to clean up after the kids. We dropped the kids off at their house on the way into town and arrived home at 1:52PM EST.