Gator!

See the alligator in this photo?

What about this one?

Me neither. But there's such a great story behind these photos, I had to write it!

We were driving home from our Saturday night dinner out as a family, and one of our favorite games while we drive this particular road is to count all of the iguanas we spot. They are so colorful and I feel like I'm looking at miniature dinosaurs every time we see them.

But on this night, as we were looking out, Mike said "Look! Gator!!" and sure enough, there was a HUGE alligator on lying on the grassy slope. He had clearly just come up from the canal and head to tail tip was easily 12-13 feet. His width was unbelievable and he was black as black!

Abby missed him, and I wanted to get a photo (yes, those amazing shots above), and you can't really pull over, so Mike made a u-turn and we went back around for a second look.

Just as we made it back around, we were chatting how uncommon it is to see a gator so far from the water, and on a slope that is that steep (gators don't like to work if they don't absolutely have to!). Then we look over and the gator was fully up, walking/moving so quickly up the slope and into the green behind (that area actually goes right into another lake)! We couldn't believe we were seeing him MOVE so quickly and right in front of us!

So of course, I thought, I want to get this on video! But we were driving, and my fumbling excitement of enjoying the moment turned into me taking to photos nowhere near the gator, and not even switching it over to video!

Oh well.

It was still awesome.