Leaving Lion Safari

after a fascinating few days.

The Lion Safari is a drive-through African animal park--we went twice. The animals are outside your vehicle in their home--they have lots of space to run around. They give you a CD to play as you drive through the park which describes the animals. Some thoughts of note:
*Ostriches are big. We're sitting in the truck and looking up at the head of the ostrich.
*rhinos are big. From the truck, we're about level with their backs. And their horns are big too!
*We got to feed giraffes. They are big, graceful, gentle animals with long (30-40 cm) purple tongues and huge eyes. We fed them "crackers" and plum leaves. Their tongues wrap around the food and they have lots of saliva, so we washed our hands afterwards!
*The KOA is just outside the park, so we could hear the lions roar, especially in the night and early morning. Its quite a sound to wake you up at 4AM! You're glad of the fact that there is at least a few fences and the trailer shell between you and them--and you think about sleeping in the open on the Serengeti!

Tomorrow we head down to the Keys. We've been buying Christmas decorations and looking around for zero-gravity beach chairs so we can make the best of a Christmas away from loved ones. Not sure when we'll be able to update the blog because there is no Internet at Curry Hammock State Park, where we are booked for 2 weeks. But there will be hot spots somewhere...