When I announced to my family that I was moving to Florida, the reactions were mixed (that's a nice way of saying some people were really awesome about it, and others were... well, let's just say less than awesome). Those who fell somewhere in the middle began to call me "gator bait" in an apparent attempt to dissuade me from leaving by implanting an irrational fear of death by alligator. I think I was supposed to believe that there were huge reptiles lurking in every Florida ditch just waiting for naïve midwestern girls to unwittingly provide them with a meal.
Since I moved here, I have done everything short of camping beside every puddle of water I find in order to see an alligator outside of a zoo-type setting. After seventeen years, the number of gators I've seen in the wild is still in the single digits. And a couple of those were dead.
A few days ago, however, Terri and I were biking through Starkey Park and we passed a man who was riding one-handed, flailing his free hand, and yelling something mostly inaudible at us. When we looked ahead, we saw another man standing next to his bike holding a camera and looking intently over the railing. We stopped, and there, maybe 15 feet from the trail, was a roughly 8-foot-long alligator soaking up the warm sun. The one time I didn't bring my regular digital camera. But I snapped a few shots with my phone, and this is one of them. Of course, I spent the rest of the ride inspecting every marshy area I saw in the hopes of finding another one. No luck. Next time, perhaps!
