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.

The Hamptons

While I was in the Hamptons earlier this month, I enjoyed a lovely day with my Grandma Shirley at Cooper's Beach. It's a beautiful beach with clean sand, relatively clean bathrooms, and a friendly beach chair/umbrella rental service.

It's the Hamptons, so they try to keep the beach exclusive with expensive parking. By "expensive parking," I mean "forty bucks" a.k.a. "the price of a nice dinner for two." My inner Scrooge would have thrown a shit fit at the thought of paying $40 for the honor of parking my car, but fortunately, we had a free parking pass for residents (BOO YAH).

You might think that an expensive beach at the Hamptons has an exclusive, classy crowd, but you would be wrong. While I was sitting with my grandma, I heard a gentleman shout, "Come here and play frisbee, you lazy punt!" (Note: he did not say punt. He shouted, for all to hear, including children, a certain word that rhymes with "punt.") Also, while sitting with my grandma, a woman walked by in a thong bikini. By "thong bikini," I mean "we saw her entire ass." It was a well-toned ass, but I did not need to see any woman's bare naked butt during my beach day, especially while sitting with my grandmother. If I wanted to see lots of naked tushees, I'd go to Brazil or a nude beach.

I also went on a road trip to Greenport with my mom, sister and grandma that involved two ferry crossings. We do not have a lot of ferries in Southern California. Who first came up with the idea of loading a bunch of cars on to a boat and then going out into open water? It just doesn't seem safe.  



Bandelier National Monument

On our last full day in New Mexico, we visited Bandelier National Monument. This is a must-visit monument for your inner-Indiana Jones. We started our visit with a walk along the Main Loop Trail, a 1.2 mile loop that starts from the main visitor's center. From the Main Loop Trail, you get to see cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and the remains of a village. 

The Main Loop Trail is a relatively easy hike, but it does involve a lot of stairs along narrow paths. This is not a place to take your infant or toddler! Also, the park rangers told us the trail was mostly shaded. That was a lie. We were usually walking in the full sun, and it was about 90 degrees when we were there. We drank two large water bottles while walking around the park.

Below you can see the remains of an abandoned village. The rooms were tiny, e.g. smaller than a celebrity's walk-in closet. I love being a Tourist Archaeologist and admiring the hard work of Real Archaelogists who have devoted years to digging in gruel heat. I myself have zero interest in hunting for pottery shards and trying to extrapolate an entire civilization's history from some petrified corn and a few broken bones. However, kudos to the archaelogists of the world - I admire your patience and diligence.

You can climb up ladders into the cliff dwellings. The residents built their structures in front of caves and used the caves as rooms. In one room, we could stand up and walk around. In another room, we could barely crouch. The caves do not have plumbing, electricity or cable.

Nathan snapped this photo as I was leaving the cave. About 20 seconds later, while stepping off the ladder, I tripped and scraped the sh** out of my right calf. It's amazing that I managed to get away with just a bad scrape. Given my clumsiness, I should have fallen off the ladder, broken my leg, and required an air lift out of the park.

As you can see from the remains below, the residents built their homes in front of the caves. Archaeologists believe the structures were accessed from the roof via ladders. In case of an attack, the women and children could hide inside and pull the ladders in after them. I'm really glad I live in a house with a front door. Can you imagine carrying your groceries up a ladder? (Although I suppose you would have very shapely calves).

Can you spot the petroglyph in the picture below? (Hint: it's a little man/alien in the dead center).

After visiting the main attractions, we continued on to the Alcove House. We hiked through the woods and discovered some of the alleged shade (it was still 90 degrees, shade or no shade).

To access the Alcove House, we had to climb 140 feet of ladders. No problem. (In case you missed it, I was being sarcastic. As we hiked to the ladders, I kept telling Nathan that I reserved the right to be a chicken and stay on the ground).

We had to climb four separate ladders. The rungs on the ladders were SO EFFING HOT. This is not something I could have done alone. I only managed the climb because Nathan was giving me encouraging pep talks throughout the ascent/descent.

Here is the Alcove House, as seen from below. When we reached it, my arms were shaking uncontrollably. Screw the stairmaster. You know what my gym needs? The LadderMaster.

I thought I was going to throw-up (from a combination of fear and exhauation), but the views were well worth the effort. (Please note: if I had slipped and fallen off the ladders, the views would not have been worth the effort). If you ever find yourself in the Santa Fe area, I highly recommend a visit to Bandelier National Monument. However, if you have even the slightest fear of heights, you should probably skip the Alcove House!