Everglades Alligator Farm

Day Seven (Friday, March 16^th):

Last night we ended up staying at a hotel in Key Largo because we were too exhausted to make the drive to the Everglades. We made full use of the shower to scrub off the deserted island feel and arrived in the Everglades the next day as new women. Looking good, our first stop was the Everglades Alligator Farm. When Jess mentioned seeing gators and taking an airboat ride in the Everglades I was expecting some redneck shack with a few gators and a wild eyed guide but the Farm was actually really nice. We got to see all kinds of stuff:

Baby Gators

Crocodiles

Turtles. Lindsay even fed these little guys!

Tortoise

The elusive Florida panther. I caught him with his eyes open!

A blue eyed goose with crazy feathers

But of course the star attractions were these guys!!

Gators, gators everywhere. I obviously have not spent a lot of time around alligators but I think they are very interesting creatures. Most of the time they just lay around like logs (ah the perks of being cold blooded) but Lindsay started feeding some of them and they started moving around and they just look like dinosaurs.

Here's 'Grampa' at `14 feet long

My favorite part was the airboat ride. Not wanting to lose the cover of my awesome hat, I wisely slipped the required ear protection right over top.

 We hopped in alongside Pschyo Paul (our driver) and trolled down a small creek where there were plenty of alligators to be seen.

Psycho Paul

 

Then we hit the wide open grass and went cruising. The airboats are pretty loud but we all had ear protection and the ride was so smooth that I could have ridden around all day. Psycho Paul even spun us around and sprayed us with water in some spots which was really fun.

It was so cool to see the “river of grass” as the Everglades is known.

 Arriving back at the Farm, it was time for the Alligator Show where a crazy man angers a gator...

...and then holds the gators mouth open with his chin while tourists wait with cameras poised to capture the moment when the gator wins.

Alas the crazy man conquered while the gator just wandered off affronted. The audience participation portion is when a baby gator with tape around his mouth gets passed around to the excited tourists. The funniest thing was that the crazy man just hands out 2 gators and walks away to collect tips.  I definitely could have walked out of there with a baby gator if I wanted to.
 
With gators on the brain, Jess and I had some fried gator for lunch. It was so delicious. We wondered just how “fresh” the meat was as hundreds of gators lay within throwing distance of the food truck.
After a short walk through the nature trail it was feeding time for the gators. Once again crazy man graced us with his presence and proceeded to throw dead rats to a bunch of gators. I thought it would be more of a frenzy but I guess they are used to getting food thrown at them several times a day. It’s funny to watch them miss through because they have blind spots and they can’t see the rat when its right in front of them.