Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Alligators Are Not A Girl's Best Friend

Eddie decided today that he wanted to go on another one of his ”nature walks”; this one in Port Arthur, Texas. We stopped at an abandoned park area, one that had clearly seen massive destruction from a hurricane. The building was destroyed, the parking lot concrete heaved up in chunks and debris was everywhere. But it seems it was part of a wildlife preserve and it had a long boardwalk that Ed (of course) wanted to explore. So, we explored.

We parked the truck next to the main building and set off on foot. Oh wait...let me show you. See that red arrow? The one pointing at the building? That's where the truck is parked. Notice how I'm not there, how I'm over HERE taking the picture? Yeah. It was that fucking far.

We walked all that way to look for wildlife. We saw lots of birds...

Many insects and crab carcasses; some intact...

Some picked apart, obviousy part of someone's tasty meal...

But the thing that really got me was this next picture. The one I took after Ed said, "Look! Alligator prints!" Oh wait...before I continue...look back at that first picture and refresh your memory about how far we were from the truck. Not just far, but fucking far, remember??

So yeah, back to the alligator prints. Check this out - you might have to enlarge the picture to see it more clearly - just below the water line, do you see the footprint (clawprint?) on the left? It looks like a little claw. .....footprint on the right....
And the long, trail in between the two prints....the swipe in the mud? The tail trail!!!! The alligator tail! As we looked out onto the swampy area, you could see a much longer tail trail between the prints. The prints looked fresh. I determined he must have been close and I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

And by fast, I mean, taking my sweat drenched head and sticky clothing and hightailing it back to the truck before my Crocs flip-flop clad feet were eaten by a croc.

When am I going to learn that I don't want to venture into nature with Ed? Why can't he want to take nature walks here??


2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Your pictures are all beautifully taken! What camera do you use? You know, if you send them to any photo contests, I bet you'll win!