Gator Encounter

We have been living in Florida for just under two months and on Saturday 4/30/05 we had our first Gator sighting. Lauren, Maxfield and I went to the park that runs along the Little Econlockhatchee River (say that 5 times fast). As we were strolling along Lauren kept looking over her shoulder into the river. I told her to stop because she was making me nervous. But she said, “I keep seeing something. I don’t know if it is a stick or a turtle, or, OH MY GOD it’s an alligator!”

So I turn around and I am like “Where?”
“Right there” she said, “In the middle of the river.”

Sure enough, swimming in the middle of the river about 50 feet away, was a 4 foot (give or take a few inches) alligator. We watched it for about a half an hour. It was floating along towards a bridge where there were guys fishing. The guys fishing left a cooler on the bank and they were afraid to go and get it. Being Northerners Lauren and I were all like “Let’s get a closer look.” We crossed the railing and walked on the bank to try and inspect the gator. It was pretty cool. Since our digital camera broke we could not zoom in to get a better picture. We tried taking one with a disposable camera but they did not come out. We got a nice picture of the river though. Hopefully we get a chance to see the Florida version of Bigfoot. It's called the Skunkape.