just a little baby

I saw him while I was on my run yesterday in one of the bigger lakes in the neighborhood.  I tried to get closer but we're still at the point where I am larger and scarier than him so he made haste in to the depths.  Give him a few more years and I would be telling a different story.

I love how adorable the little babies are.  I feel like growing up in Florida it was always drilled in to our heads that they are cute as babies but not when they grow up.  But I mean, come on, what were we to do when we had things like this to influence us:

source

Look at the little beach chair!  So cute.

And yet, the adult in me does recognize that Elvis has probably grown in to a bloodthirsty killer by now.

Speaking of bloodthirsty killers, here's a picture of that nice nice guy:

Similarly waiting in the shadows for just the right moment to strike.  And by strike I mean lay down.

I'd hang out here too

Almost every time I pass this spot that same white bird is standing right there in the middle.  The first few times I saw him I assumed that it was somehow an easy place to catch fish, like bears catching salmon.  I've never seen him act the slightest bit interested in anything in the water however.  From what I can tell he's just standing there zoning out, enjoying the water rushing around his little feet and the gentle gurgling below him.

I tried to get closer to him to take a better picture but I seriously took no more than two steps beyond that picture and he flew away in a panic.  I didn't think I would be so terrifying or I wouldn't have disturbed him and I felt kind of bad.

That is until I passed back by here on my way home and saw that he had returned, with some friends for protection:

I like that they aren't all the same.  More of a ragtag group of street toughs.  To be honest I do think these birds have nerves of steel for hanging out so casually in what is surely alligator infested water.

Apparently I am scarier to a bird than any aquatic reptile.

I'm inclined to accept that.  I can't say I'm getting any argument to the contrary from any other species.

I blame kitty for infecting me with the crazy gene.

It's all happening again!

This turtle is considerably smaller, and this stretch of road had plenty of places to go besides directly in to him so we managed to avoid a collision, but I was nervous.

Just like last time there was a pick up truck barreling down on me from behind and I know the instinct seems to be, "when in doubt, smash the car in front of me" so I braced myself for impact but he actually ended up stopping and getting out to carry the turtle to safety.

With the frequency that I see turtles when I'm driving I'm surprised I don't see more animals when I'm walking around here.  Since it's been raining EVERY DAY here lately the area along the sides of the road are pretty much like wetlands.  When I'm walking I find myself frantically scanning the water for alligators but I've yet to see one.  I hear their gentle grunting in the night so I know they're in there, just waiting for me to let my guard down.

And snakes, I'm surprised I've not seen any snakes either.  I think what's scarier than not having seen them is knowing that I must have passed right by them and not noticed at all, because there is certainly no shortage of snakes in Florida.  Still not as bad as when I was telling Andrew's mom about how much I love the drive on 17 between 95 and Charleston and she said, "Oh yeah, it's beautiful, but that whole area is horribly infested with rattlesnakes.  They hang out in the trees!  I wouldn't drive through there with the top down."

Just thinking about it now is giving me the heebie jeebies.

I need to go take a shower now.

I make bad choices

I once again found myself in alligator alley with the needle dancing in the red.  I don't know what my problem is.  This time I was going in the opposite direction, and I guess I thought I had enough gas to get to the gas station that I stopped at the last time I almost ran out.  I thought this gas station was right at the edge but apparently it's not at all so I once again almost ran out of gas.  I took this picture when I arrived at the pump, I'm not sure how many miles my car had left in her.  At least the cruise control didn't shut itself off like the 3 series did.

And for those of you who said that the fences keep the alligators away from the road nowadays (scott) let me just say that I definitely saw alligator road kill this time.  I have yet to see any giant pythons but I will scream like a little girl as soon as I do.

In keeping with my theme of making bad choices I decided to put the top down when I stopped for gas.  I think I was just so relieved to have made it that I thought nothing else could go wrong.

As you can see it looks like blue skies and fluffy white clouds, but that is the florida rain phenomenon.  You never know when it's going to strike, the sun can still be blindingly bright but it's just a deluge of rain.  This was the case shortly after I got back on the road, deep in the heart of alligator alley.  There was no way I was pulling over to put the top up so I just rolled up the windows and relied on the aerodynamics of fine german engineering to keep me dry.  It did ok, I'm not sure if having the windows up and the windscreen helped or hurt the air flow in terms of keeping me dry.  The rain kind of formed a rivulet along the window which, upon reaching the back, flew around and in to the car for a gentle steady hosing. Otherwise though I remained pretty dry.  Just kind of a windy mist swirling around the inside of the car, kind of refreshing actually.

I don't think I will be making a habit of going rain riding in my car though, but it's good to know that I won't get completely drenched if I get caught in the rain.  As long as I keep my speed up.  It's kind of like that movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode.  I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down".  source

I'm glad that Jonathan sent me this as it caused me to listen to nothing but Britney the whole way down and back.  I seriously hope that article is telling the truth, I can't wait.  And maybe I will still be homeless when the VMA's come around so it will be no big thing for me to camp out for a week before hand so I can be right up close!

Silver linings, silver linings.

with 5 miles to spare

I guess I didn't understand that the drive from Sarasota to Ft. Lauderdale is a desolate no mans land.

I am not exaggerating when I say it pretty much looks like this the whole way down:

source

So there I was scooting along, talking on the phone with Dan, completely unaware that I had entered alligator alley (that's actually the name of this stretch of road) and that any hope of getting gas was apparently futile until I entered Broward County.

I have mixed feelings about this digital readout of how many miles you have left until you run out of gas.  I probably wouldn't have gotten myself in the position of almost running out of gas in alligator infested swamplands had it not been for the digital readout and my thinking, '50 miles?  That's a long way!' and continuing to drive on the assumption that I would find a gas station when I needed a gas station.  I think if I had just been looking at the gauge that showed I only had a quarter of a tank I would have probably filled up sooner.  On the other hand once I realized that I was potentially going to run out of gas it kind of put my mind at ease to know when it was going to happen.  Just counting down the miles, waiting for the inevitable.

But I guess I did find a gas station when I needed one.  I was curious about what was going to happen when it got to zero, I have a feeling there is a reserve tank.  Oddly when I got down to 10 miles left it disabled my cruise control.  I mean, I was relying on the cruise control to keep my speed steady so I could get the most out of what precious little gas I had left.  Once it was gone those final five miles was like the ultimate test in "steady foot".

I'm here now though, safe and sound.  Just looking through some listings that Rob gave me and waiting for Jon to get in so we can cruise the streets and terrorize this town.

belated birthday at myakka

Due to my stupidity I had missed most of my sister's actual birthday and told her that I wanted to make it up to her one day with a special brother sister activity.  That day came on sunday and I took my sister to myakka.

We drove around mostly, we walked down one trail and then went out to the dam that I seem to always find myself going to.  The trail we walked down was the first one we got to and was chosen rather arbitrarily.  It ended up being a great walk though.

The path kind of rambled along side the river and had it not been for the water being there I'm not sure we would have felt comfortable trekking as far as we did.  Especially because myakka isn't like disney world, there is no barrier between you and the wild.  At one point I looked across the river to find this:

So creepy.  It looks like a dragon or something, all you can see is the huge reptilian tail curled in the grass.

There were more people at the dam area, some even brave enough to be out in boats even though it was quite windy.

And over at the dam there were a couple families fishing so of course there was a crowd of hopefuls gathered around the pier including this guy who was a lot bigger than he appears in this picture:

I should have gotten a bird in the picture or something for reference as to how big he was.  He was just camped out there right underneath where some children were fishing.  So hopeful.

Allegedly on our way out there was a baby alligator in the grass along side the road but neither my sister nor I saw it so I am not going to count it on our list of things we saw at myakka.  So overall the adventure wasn't terribly out of the ordinary, but it was a great way to spend some time with my sister just talking and enjoying the sunday morning drive through the country.

Myakka River State Park

So while Jon was visiting me in Florida he said that he really wanted to see an alligator up close. I told him I could do that but I wasn't just going to take him to a zoo, I was going to take him to see a gator up close and personal.

I took him to Myakka River State Park which is a little south east of Sarasota. We used to go there a lot when I was a kid, my brother really liked it and would always say "let's go to Myakka, let's go to Myakka". I apparently would always say, "let's go to Brussakka, let's go to Brussakka" much to everyones confusion. I guess they finally figured out that I thought the park belonged to my brother so I was putting "bruh" for brother in the place of the "my", thinking it was literally my brother's-akka park. still makes sense to me.

Anyways, we had such a great time. We rented our canoes at around 10:30 and the woman said it was such and such an amount for the first hour and then an extra $5 after the first hour was up. I was all, "oh I'm sure we'll want to explore for at least a couple hours". Yeah, hardly. It was incredibly hot, and I had forgotten how challenging it is to paddle a canoe. It wasn't so much my arms that got tired but more my back from sitting on the weird metal seat with no back and having to prop myself up. I kept thinking about the early explorers who would have traveled through these florida swamps for days in a canoe. They must have had great backs!

We saw several alligators, but none let us get very close to them. They would be sitting right at the surface watching us and then when we got maybe 20 ft away they would just slowly sink under the surface. It was really unsettling. Whenever i watch alligators I think about how an acting teacher once told us that when Anthony Hopkins was researching for the role of Hannibal Lecter he decided to base the character on a true cold blooded killer, the alligator, so he would go to the zoo and watch them for hours. If you know alligators mannerisms and you watch the movie with that understanding it really is incredible. There's something about how they are so still and just watch you, but then when they do move it's very deliberate and calculated. Whenever we would be in the middle of one of those giant fields of lilly pads we would all of a sudden see a couple of them move just a little bit and get so freaked out that it was some giant 12 foot gator just under the surface watching us floundering in our metal coffin.

But we didn't die, we ended up having a really fun time, and definitely made it back within the initial hour, both drenched in sweat and exhausted.

that's what she said

well what are we supposed to do for fun?