Nice gator.
Really, nice gator stay in the water, please?
Picking out a gator to wrestle.
Giving a little zoology lesson, including poking them in the eyes (not really, their eyes squish down in their head to avoid such things), showing off their claws, etc.
Showing off the teeth.
Just plain showing off.
Breathe, mom. We got the upgraded tickets ($27ish) that also got us pictures with the gators, unlimited train rides, and a bag of hot dogs to feed the gators. Brandon hopped right out there and sat himself down. For the record, there is electrical tape around his snout and you can see the trainer right next to him. But that little dike around the sand? Filled with about 15 alligators. Didn't phase him in the least.
There was no way mom was going out there, and we didn't trust Jacob to go, since parents weren't allowed out there at the same time. Jacob's kind of unpredictable, so...no.
After gator wrestling, we did the Swamp Walk. Most of the area survived the hurricanes of 05 and 06, and a direct hit from a tornado that spun off from one.
"Mom, take a picture of the cool moss!"
Christmas decorations that Jacob wanted to take home.
We crowded around the main pond for the Gator Jumparoo show, where they feed the gators.
Alas, it was too chilly and the gators weren't real interested in moving. The above is a gator, most of the ones below are crocs. How to tell them apart? Gators have rounded snouts, crocs have more pointed ones.
Instead of hanging the chicken on the line above the pond, they had to hand feed the few that were interested. Jacob had lost interest by this point and he and I wandered over to the snack bar, where he (and later Brandon) devoured popcorn and peppermint DippinDots (which were actually pretty good).
We found this guy over by the snack shack and the boys had a little too much fun with it.
Remember when we said we didn't let Jacob get his picture taken with the live gator? Good choice. He jumped on here and started acting like he was in the rodeo.
Thieving birds! No really, there were signs everywhere warning about the thieving birds that would steal your food.
Heading off on the train ride.
Choo choo!
Then, turds that they are, Rick and Brandon drug me through the back nature walk. All the gators were in enclosures, but it didn't stop me from freaking out every time they would kick pebbles in to the underbrush or wait until I was taking a picture and trying to scare me.
Crocodile "Dundee". No really, that's his name. The female in the pen is Sheila.
As we got back over by the restaurant, Brandon announced he was hungry and declared that he was going to try some gator bites. He actually ate about half of them, even though "the batter leaves a weird aftertaste." We were just impressed he was willing to try them.
Albino gator. Brandon wasn't as impressed as the other kids, since we have one at the Houston zoo.
He did spend some time hanging out with the snakes, though.
Including this ticked off looking guy. Rattlers, corn snakes, and more, oh crap!
We got our four bags of gator chow (turkey hot dogs) and tried to find some gators to feed. Most of them didn't care, and the birds would swoop in and steal them.
We tried several different enclosures, and even had a bird steal a hot dog out of Brandon's hand. We finally found a pen of baby gators that were hungry.
Unfortunately for Brandon/fortunately for Mom, the baby gators in the gift shop weren't for sale. Jacob, who had shown no really interest in souvenirs at this point, walked up, took a stuffed coral snake off a rack and started to walk out with it. I guess he wanted him.After that, it was back to the condo to hang out and let Brandon walk to the on site convenience store by himself. That bothered me more than letting him sit on the alligator. Rick patted me on the head and said he was proud of me.
