Sunday, November 19, 2006
Isn't She A Beaut!
As you may well know, I live in S. Florida and overall I love it here. I love the beach, I love the weather, I love the city, I love the wildlife. When people think Florida and wildlife, they tend to think manatee and alligator. As I’ve stated before, apparently a manatee swims around where I live but he continues to think it’s hilarious not to appear for me. Further, I had never seen an alligator in the wild either and was beginning to wonder if I would ever see either of these two animals. I mean, dang! How hard can it be? They’re everywhere here and they are in the news all the time...what is the deal?
Well, kids, on Saturday? I got to see one of the two. And it was one of the absolute best weekends I’ve ever had in my life. I was asked to go biking in the Everglades and I was thrilled. I could not wait. I’ve never been to the Everglades, even though it’s our backyard here so I could not wait to get out there and see all the nature. The night before I laid in bed thinking about what it would be like. When I went on hikes or did something wilderness-ey in Washington state, there were always dirt trails so I figured it would be the same here. I pictured us biking along a dirt trail with alligators snapping at us from both sides all along the route. Scary as hell but I still wanted to go.
We drove to Shark Valley visitor center and got the bikes ready to take on a 15 mile trail that loops around an observation tower at the upper edge of Shark River Slough. Now, I for some reason thought the Everglades were going to be a lot of trees and dark and shady and alligator-ey. I don’t know why I thought there would be so many trees...maybe it’s something left over from my WA days. As the rest of the world probably knows, the Everglades are actually a lot of tall grasses, sunny and alligator-ey. Ok, at least I got one right.
I was informed that I may not see any alligators or, if I did, I might just see eyeballs in the water. Well, that relieved me a little knowing they wouldn’t be on the bike path but it also upset me a little because I really wanted to see one. Just one? Please? Just one little gator sighting? I don’t ask for much!
We got on the bikes and headed down the trail. The paved trail...yes, I’m retarded. We were not but 30 feet in when I heard, “There’s one now.” GASP! Oh. My. GOD! A real, live wild alligator...in the wilderness! Right in front of me! Eeeeee! I felt my mouth drop open in surprise and I could not close it. I was so excited and awed and scared at the same time. I wanted to take a photo and started to walk towards it just a little bit. See, it’s behind was towards us and I figured if I stayed 10 feet away, (I think that’s the rule anyway), I would have ample time to jump out of the way if it decided to whip around and snap its teeth at me.
Inch by inch, my shaking legs took me closer to the alligator. When my brave self went in to hiding and the scaredy cat came out, I stopped and snapped the photo:
Cool! So cool! So amazingly cool!
After a little bit we got back on our bikes and pedaled a little further down the path. And guess what? MORE alligators! They were everywhere! I wanted to scream with laughter because it was all just so incredibly awesome. The alligators were sunning themselves on the side of the bike path and that meant we had to pedal past them not 5-6 feet from them. Ok, so, like my first 10 alligators? This was a little nerve wracking. It was scary as hell!
Then, just when I was starting to get a little used to passing them on my bike, we met the big one. Mother of Pearl this thing was HUGE! And? Its mouth was open displaying its sharp, “Better to eat you with, my dear” teeth. He was so big and was hogging up so much space and he was facing the bike path that going past him was frightening. He scared both of us.
Crikey! You see? See what I mean? Any one of you who says you wouldn’t have been scared of that thing is a liar! LIE! ER! But I now understand Steve Irwin when he would say how gorgeous these animals are because damn! Look at that thing!
We continued on and hit a long stretch of road that ran straight for some time so that we could see dark lumps on the side of the trail. This gave me ample time to prepare myself for the fact that I would be passing another alligator and I did so with a little less fear each time. I was very proud of myself and was just mentally giving myself a pat on the back when we went around a blind corner.
And I damn near knocked us both off of our bikes because I was shocked into such fear that I haven’t known for a long time. You see, when we went around this blind corner, there, to the right, was an enormous gator hanging out on the side of the path and I had no warning and was taking totally off guard. We had to stop for a few seconds while I waited to see if my heart would explode from my chest before I had calmed down enough to continue on.
Eventually we reached the observation tower, went up, looked around, came back down and continued on the back stretch of the path. It was a really good ride and we were pedaling along at a good speed despite the wind coming at us. At about the last mile on the path, we saw our “farewell” alligator...and yes, we made the stupid jokes, “See ya later alligator” and “After while, crocodile” because we are both dorks. Anyway, we stopped so I could take a photo because he was a small gator and by this time I was feeling much more brave than before. I walked my bike towards him, slowly, getting as close as I dared.
Well, apparently the alligator had decided I was too close for his comfort and started to move. Back to fear. It was only for a split second because what the gator actually did was move away from us. It was kind of funny because his back legs flayed around for a little bit while his front legs pulled him over a few feet. Once he determined that we were far enough away again, he resumed his sunning position, staring at us. He was so cute!
Isn’t he? Adorable!
Now, don’t go thinking I was being stupid and trying to waltz on up to some alligator to scritch it between its eyes because while I may be a dork, I’m not stupid. I tried to maintain the 10 foot rule whenever possible when approaching for a photo. Biking past them didn’t always give us 10 feet but we did not exactly bike past them all slowly either.
We also saw a lot of birds out there...these birds are enormous! My God they are huge! I didn’t get any photos of the huge birds but I did see many of these white ones up in some trees and had to take a shot because that was what I thought the Everglades would look like:
Pretty!!
Before we met our last alligator we had seen some white tail deer along the trail. I wanted to take a photo of them but they had other ideas and bounded away from us. They boinged right on in to the marshy area and turned around to stare at us. We had to pass them as we continued along the path and I could have stopped to take a photo but I decided that because they were the ones with their hooves in alligator infested waters, they had bigger things to worry about and I didn’t need to go making it worse on them by standing there scaring them.
All in all I think we must have seen 30 alligators along the way. Many of them were on the side of the bike path although a few were in the water, like this guy:
Except for the big scary guy from before, this is probably my favorite photo of the whole bunch. It’s just so beautiful!
We made our way back to the visitor center and headed back for home. Along the way we stopped at a bbq place and I got to pet a Shetland pony....heehee! Brought back some childhood memories. We ate yummy bbq and then got on our way.
You guys? I’m still floating around on cloud 9 over this whole experience. I can’t believe I got to do what I just did on Saturday. It was so....sigh, man, it was so.....perfect! I will never forget that day ever. EVER in my entire life, ever! I’m telling you, if you live here, GO! If you don’t live here, you must visit! It’s so peaceful and awesome, in the true sense of the word and....it’s so everything wonderful that you will run out of words to describe how you feel when you are done.
I mean it, one of the best days I’ve ever had. I’m so going back one day.
So...what did you all do this weekend?
And to you, the one who invited me along: You said I didn’t need to thank you but I continue to do so. I’m so thankful that you brought me there and gave me one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. As I said, I’ll never forget it and I’ll never forget who was with me when I saw my first wild alligator. Or my first 30 wild alligators. Thank you so very much.
[The photos have a watermark because I don’t want people stealing them from google images or anywhere else, (including this site), and claiming them as their own. These are MY photos and they are not to be recopied, sold or distributed without my permission.]
