Albino Gators

To wrap up our Unofficial Gator Week, here is a ghostly gator to haunt your dreams:

He has a friend:

I had no idea there was such a thing as an albino alligator. They are beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. Even worse, they look like they might want to be your friend and cuddle... except if given half a chance, they would tear apart all your limbs and eat you while your heart was still beating.

I'm glad I did not know about albino gators when I was a kid. My nightmares of normal gators were bad enough (especially the one that involved me falling into a moat of gators at the mall in Santa Monica while I was shopping with my dad - this dream is weird on so many levels, but it still gives me chills to think about it).

Gator Wrestling

Warning: photo heavy post!

 

While we were at Gatorland, Nathan and I watched one of the shows. The show starts with a couple of guys bantering. One of them showed off his skills with a whip. It seemed like the sort of show you might watch at any zoo or amusement park.

 

 

Except wait, holy eff, what the crap is he doing? What is he pulling out of the moat?!

 

 

Is that an alligator? PUT IT BACK IN THE MOAT!!! Or better yet: PUT THAT MONSTER IN A CAGE! WITH CHAINS! LOTS OF EFFING CHAINS!

 

 

Where are you taking that thing? You realize you are holding the tail of an alligator??? What do you possibly think you are going to do with a mother-effing-gator?

 

 

Oh, of course, I should have known. You are going to sit on the alligator. Because that looks totally safe.

 

STOP THAT. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW. I am so going to tell your mother and you are going to be totally grounded for at least a month.

 

 

No. NO. You are not opening the mouth of the alligator. I refuse to believe that you are opening the mouth of the alligator just so the audience can admire its teeth. How much is the minimum wage rate in Florida? I hope Gatorland is giving you the best damn health insurance in the universe BECAUSE YOUR FACE IS INCHES AWAY FROM AN OPEN ALLIGATOR MOUTH AND IF YOU GET YOUR NOSE CHOMPED OFF, I AM NOT GOING TO FEEL SORRY FOR YOU.

 

Are you trying to make me pee my pants? (Because if so, congratulations: mission accomplished).

 

 

Well, this is an improvement. You are still sitting on the gator, which makes you the dumbest person in the state of Florida, but at least you've closed its mouth.

 

So what are you going to do now?

 

 Holy bleeping bleepity bleep shit.

 

Son, you realize you are holding a gator's mouth open with your chin?

 

I feel like this is an important question, so I am going to repeat myself: YOU REALIZE YOU ARE HOLDING A MOTHER-EFFING-GATOR'S MOUTH OPEN WITH YOUR TINY WEAK ASS CHIN???

 

 

Please don't do that.

 

Look, this is what you are need to do: put your hands back on the ground; take your chin away from the scary gator mouth; tie the beast up with chains; and then lock it into a dungeon until the end of time.

This looks like a good idea. Let's put the gator down for a nap. It's night-night time!

 

Are you completely bat shit insane? Don't walk away from it! What if the gator is pretending to sleep? He is lulling you into a false sense of security AND THEN HE IS GOING TO BITE YOUR NUTS OFF.

Sir, I'm not kidding. I can tell the gator is faking. Your nuts = gator snack.

Oh good, this seems like an intelligent way to end the show. Just wake the gator up and let him run around the stage angry. Now why don't we release the gator into the crowds and see how many tourists he can slaughter before someone takes him down with a flame thrower.

But seriously: the Gator Wrestling show at Gatorland is AWESOME. I would totally visit it again. However, the next time we go to Orlando, we'll have Baby Girl, and I can't let Baby Girl see this show. No child of mine needs to think of Gator Wrestling as a fun and whimsical activity.

And for the record: I did not actually pee my pants while watching this show or walking around any of the Gatorland attractions. However, when I visited the ladies restroom, I was deeply concerned that an escaped gator might be lurking in the toilets.

Gatorland, Part One

We all have our special fears. Some people are afraid of heights. Others dread airplanes, bugs, ghosts and clowns. I am terrified of crocodiles and alligators.

My family lived in Florida during the summer that I was three years old. I only have dim memories of our Florida summer, but I understand I attended a preschool camp that was next to a canal. There was a chain link fence between the preschool and the canal, but my parents instructed me to keep the eff away from the water because it was teeming with croc-a-gators. (I used the same word for crocodiles and alligators. It was easier on my toddler vocabulary.)

I spent my childhood terrified of croc-a-gators. When the lights went out for bedtime, I thought a big croc-a-gator beast came to life under my bed.

Fast forward to the present, and croc-a-gators still scare the crap out of me. When I think of a place like Florida, this is what I imagine:

So when we went to Florida last month, I was on high alert. Every body of water, from pools to ponds to roadside canals, was suspect. And OMG, half the state is covered with water. It's just a big freaking swamp made for these prehistoric beasts. We drove past the headwaters to the Everglades at least 30 times, and every time, I expected a herd of gators to pour on to the freeway and chomp through our car. Seriously, when you are in Florida, a croc-a-gator could be ANYWHERE. Even here:

Our guidebook mentioned Gatorland as a fun Orlando attraction. In light of my extreme gator phobia, you would think I would avoid Gatorland like the plague. But I'm pregnant, so the usual theme parks are out of the question; and besides, Gatorland seemed like a healthy way to confront my demons.

 

Visitors are welcomed to the park by piles of gators. At first, I was amused. The gators and I were separated by a safe and respectable distance. The barriers were too high for even the most enterprising gator to vault.

 

Then we went to the Breeding Marsh.

 

 



The Breeding Marsh is easily the most terrifying spot in the entire world. You walk along a dock. There are barriers on either side of the dock, but the dock is quite narrow. Too narrow, if you ask me. Also, as we walked along the dock, the wood felt a little soft. As if it has spent one too many years soaking up Florida rains. As if, a hungry gator could easily nudge the planks aside and drag me into the marsh.

I summoned all my courage and marched into the marsh.

At first glance, the photo above looks like a lovely shot of the water. Oh look, how the clouds and trees are reflected on the water's surface! But look closer, and you will see the source of 98% of my childhood nightmares.

Now let's talk about the Zipline.

 

Here is a view of the marsh. This is just about 20% of the Breeding Marsh, but you get the idea. Visitors to Gatorland can, for an additional fee, ride a Zipline that passes over the gators. Why any rational human being would think this is a good idea is beyond me. (Question: is any reputable insurance company actually cool with this???) In the photo above, you can see the tower that the Zipline riders climb. The Zipline passes over the Breeding Marsh. You could not pay me enough to ride that thing. 

I felt very courageous in the Breeding Marsh. Look how close I was to this gator, and I was still able to take a focused photo without dropping my camera into the water.

Then I saw this guy:

He was swimming fast and straight towards the dock where Nathan and I were standing. And he looked hungry. Hungry for human flesh.

But I was okay. The guidebook would not have recommended Gatorland if the gators had a penchant for leaping over barricades and snacking on tourists.

We proceeded a little further. I was such a bad ass. I could totally handle the Breeding Marsh. Then I looked to the left and saw a pile of about 30 gators, moving around and acting hungry. Then I looked to the right, and there were at least 70 gators, moving around and acting famished. There were gators swimming beneath the dock, just inches from our feet.

We were completely surrounded.

I do not have any photos to document this moment because I freaked the eff out. I hyperventilated and walked as quickly as I could to the exit. We were clearly moments away from instant death. The gators were planning an attack, and soon a frenzy of those prehistoric beasts would tear the dock down. I would have run, but I was afraid I might stumble and crash over the dock into the water.

After the Breeding Marsh, we rode the Choo Choo Train around the park. The Choo Choo Train passed some cows and emus. This was much more to my liking.

Tomorrow: Gator Wrestling, aka the dumbest way to earn minimum wage in Florida.