Really far off topic ....
Glad to see I'm not the only one posting on here!
Since there isn't a lot to talk about right now, I thought I would tell you about what I did this morning.
Interstate 75 and US 441 go across a prairie south of my town that had been a lake in the 19th century but sink holes expanded their throughput in the 20th century, draining the lake and turning it into a vast pasture. It eventually was made a wildlife sanctuary where wild horses, bison, and cranes make a home. El Nino has provided far more water than even the sink holes can handle, and the water has reached the outer lane of US 441, closing it to trucks and making cars use the inner lanes. I jumped on my old Schwinn and rode down to a trail that I knew would take me to the Alachua Sink. I wanted to see what it looked like now. Would I find a big whirl pool?
As I climbed down the side of a bluff overlooking the prairie and emerged from a grove of trees, I immediately saw that the water had come up to the base of the bluff, leaving the trail several inches below the water level. But just beyond the edge of the water, an 8 foot gator blocked my path. Now 8 feet is not large for a gator as they can get to be 12 to 14 feet long. But I had no way of knowing whether it had been fed by people for sport. When people feed gators, they associate people with food and become very dangerous.
As he and I eyed each other, questions welled up from the pit of my stomach.
1. Why was that old boy belly down across the trail?
2. Is that a twinkle in his eye, or a gleam of hunger?
3. Has that bad boy developed a Taste For Tourist?
4. Do I feel lucky?
5. Well, DO I?
Deciding not to get my Sauconies wet, I made a right turn and skirted the water's edge, walking to a little high point that extended out into the prairie, watching the ground for snakes. The air was completely still and the only sounds were from song birds.
It was easy to pretend that I was back a century or two, or even a thousand, with the still water submerging all but the larger plants and with an occasional heron or ibis floating by overhead. It was very enjoyable, but still in the back of my mind was the nagging thought of whether that bad boy was considering blocking my escape route.
Well, I had other things to do, so I eventually rode home again. But being eyeball to eyeball with a gator with no fence between is an interesting feeling.
Charles |
