Sorry gang, things got a little hectic there for a minute. Or maybe that's not true. Things got a little busy? Or crowded? Or some combination?
After our stretch in North Carolina, visiting time started. Jenna called this section the "Tour de Friends" because we would be visiting a lot of (vaccinated) friends in rapid succession, most of whom were her nursing school friends. To summarize: 2 nights with Leslie and Peter + their two daughters, 2 nights with Joy and Jason + their two daughters, 2 nights with Chuck and Susan + their three kids, and a dinner with Megan and Josh + their three kids.
Then we exhaled. After not seeing people in person over the last 14 months, it was a bit overwhelming, but it was excellent
We had a wonderful time with everyone, and we squeezed in visits after this stretch too. Minor details may come out about those as well, but I don't really want to give more information about other peoples' lives and families beyond the simplest details at this point.
After that section of house-to-house, we spent two nights in national forests near Auburn, and visited the university for an afternoon (Jenna went there!) so we could get a lemonade at Toomer's, among other things. (Note: the lemonade was really good.)
But the real story was the alligators. Don't get me wrong, seeing friends is awesome and therapeutic and emotionally fulfilling, but it's also possible to talk to those friends without seeing them. It's not possible to see alligators in the wild without seeing alligators in the wild.
A few years ago we went to Gulf Shores, Alabama to see Jenna's parents. There's this big park called Gulf State Park where we rode bikes and walked and saw all sorts of fun animals, including gators. This time, we were excited at the prospect of seeing even more.
We were not disappointed.
On our very first day visiting the park, we hopped on the long-portion of the bike trail (RIP my tender undercarriage) and rode about 800 feet before we came to a little pond. What did we see?
A tiny baby alligator riding on the back of its mama (or papa, I guess).
OK. Good start. Adorable and very very good start.
Over the next few days we saw about seven alligators, including these two. Somehow, this pair above was NOT the highlight. It may have even only come in 3rd overall in our excitement scale. So let's countdown.
#2 most exciting alligator experience (which was #1 when it happened but then it got beaten the next day) was later on this first day when we stopped at a bridge overlooking a river in the park. After a few minutes we noticed a gator pretty far away. Cool, but not insanely cool, so we waited to see if it did anything.
It got closer.
And closer.
And then it went directly underneath us.
It was awesome. The above photo is looking directly down from the bridge. We were about 15 vertical feet from this alligator and we watched it for a solid 5-10 minutes as it just sat in the weeds, hanging out. But that still wasn't #1.
Our NUMBER 1 ALLIGATOR ENCOUNTER was as follows.
We were driving down the main road toward the beach, which passes a small park that has a boardwalk over a marsh. We had looked for gators there a couple years ago but this year the boardwalk was mostly closed due to hurricane damage. As we drove, I saw two people standing on the only part of the boardwalk that was open and they were looking at the same spot. I followed their eyes and saw what had to be a gator.
We swung the car around, parked, hopped out, and scampered to see what was to see.
Two gators. Adults. about 30 feet apart.
And one appeared to have blood in its teeth.
This was just too cool. As an added bonus, both were pretty beefy and appeared to be just lounging in the sun, digesting.
The only thing that could've made this cooler was something that we missed. The 2nd one - with the not-white teeth - crawled into the water while we were still there. It was very cool to see. However, right as we left, it appeared to move toward the other gator, which had ALSO gotten into the water.
Did they joust? Did they play demolition derby with their bodies? Did they ignore each other?
We have no idea. It may be best left to our imaginations though.
Alligators are awesome.
