Billy and I took Evan camping at Reed Bingham State Park in Adel, GA. We found it to be a great park. Nice spacious campsites, and lots to do like biking, canoeing, swimming and mini golf. Evan made quite a few friends while we were there. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up camp. When we checked in Evan saw a turtle that grows when you put it in water and wanted us to buy it for him. We told him he would have to earn it by helping set up camp. He worked hard setting up the camper so when we finished we walked back to the office to get it. We put it in water and waited for it to grow. (It grew very slowly but you should see it now!) Evan and Granddaddy went on a Gopher tortoise exploration and put out apples to see if the Gophers would eat them. Then we went to Burger King to pick up a picnic supper. We ate our picnic down by the swimming beach then Evan went swimming. It was too cold for Mimi and Granddaddy so we cheered him on from the beach. He quickly made friends with some children and their father and played with them until they left. He played in the water until it was dark then we went back to the camper to get cleaned up and get ready for our big day at Wild Adventures on Friday. Of course, we had to have a campfire before we turned in!
Granddaddy and Evan made us a great fire.
We didn't have the ingredients to make S'Mores so Evan wanted to do an experiment with peanut butter and bread. We spread part of the bread with peanut butter and left part without. Then we toasted it over our fire.
Evan made notes about the results of the experiment.
We got up early Friday morning and had a big breakfast of grits and eggs. We checked Evan's Gopher experiment before we headed to Wild Adventures. We found that one Gopher had eaten his/her apple but the other one didn't. It was just covered with ants! Then we took off for Wild Adventures!
Evan was so excited and Mimi was too. We were looking forward to riding all kinds of scary rides especially the roller coasters. Evan had never ridden one so we didn't know how he would do. He turned out to be a great riding partner for Mimi. Granddaddy served as the junk holder so Evan and Mimi could ride. Our first ride was the Ant Farm roller coaster.
Evan loved it so we had to ride a second time. He told the little girl behind us on the second ride not to worry about the big hills...they were fun! Then we rode the Goin' Bananas roller coaster. It was a lot higher. He loved that one too. We wound up riding the two over and over toward the end of the day after we had ridden everything else Evan was tall enough to ride.
He rode all the kiddie rides even though they were a bit anti-climatic after all the big rides.
He was very brave and rode several rides that went really high and fast.
He got a little scared on this one because it went so high but he still liked it.
You can see here how high we went!
This one went around really fast and slung him up under my arm. We loved this one!
This ride really scared him but he very bravely rode it a second time because Mimi loved it so much. Mimi didn't even ask him to ride it again. He just said we should because I really liked it.
The first time we rode this ride he was screaming, "Get me off of here!" I told him to close his eyes. He did and said it wasn't so bad that way. When we rode it the second time, he said, " I'll just keep my eyes closed the whole time this time."
On this ride we got to fly like falcons!
This one was like the Ocotopus at the fair. It was a piece of cake!
After riding all the scary rides we were a little tired and hungry so we took the train around the animal park and saw some cool critters.
Granddaddy on the train! He did ride that with us!
Evan was tired when we rode the train but wouldn't admit it!
We were in the first car on the train so I took our picture in the mirror.
This rhino was enjoying his mud hole!
We thought this guy was a statue at first then he twitched his nose so we knew he was real.
Evan loved this giant slide and went over and over!
He made Mimi climb all those stairs and slide too!
I think Evan won the race!
He even got Granddaddy to do this one!
Granddaddy won the race this time because he knew about aerodynamics!
I think the Black Water Falls ride was his favorite. Mimi made Granddaddy ride this one!
because....
You get soaked!
Evan and Granddaddy didn't seem to mind being all wet though.
Evan finally talked Mimi into riding it. He promised we would leave as soon as I rode it with him so I wouldn't have to walk around wet. But...
We rode this.
And this.
Of course, it turned out to be a good thing we rode this because it went around so fast it spun all the water out of us!
We were almost dry at the end of the ride. We rode the roller coasters a few more times and probably would have kept riding them until the park closed if the park had not shut them down due to an approaching storm. The thought of a storm convinced Evan to finally leave the park. It started to rain just as we were leaving. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep before we ever got out of the parking lot. We even stopped for the ingredients for S'Mores and pancakes for the next morning and he never woke up.
We were all starving so we went to a neat Catfish restaurant right outside the park gates. Evan and I shared a grouper plate. That boy can eat some fish! He told our waitress all about his wild adventures.
It was still raining when we got back to the campground so we had to get a little creative to make our S'Mores. We put the fire in the little grill under the awning of the camper. We got our S'Mores made but Evan forgot all about eating his when a little boy and two little girls asked him to play. They played until it was too dark to see outside.
Saturday morning the rain was gone but it was cold. Evan and I walked to the camp store to get Granddaddy a long sleeved shirt. I got one too. Even though I had a light weight jacket I was still cold. Evan saw a pack of toy snakes and wanted them. I told him he could earn the money for them when we took down the camper. We took Granddaddy his shirt then Evan and Granddaddy went to play mini golf while I organized things for breaking camp. As soon as they finished playing golf Evan wanted to come back to help me so he could earn his snakes. He did everything he was asked as we packed up the camper. We told him he had earned his snakes but then he wanted to rent bikes and ride before we left. That was the same price as the snakes so we made him choose. He said, "This is too hard! If I ride bikes that's over but if I get the snakes I can play with them again. But I might loose the snakes"....and on and on. He finally decided to get the snakes. We got the snakes and headed home. He conked out for most of the ride home!
That is Evan under his blanket sound asleep!
