Happy Monday!
This would have been Sunday’s blog, but I got distracted by the fellow in the picture at the top of my post today. You see, there was a really big alligator (about 7 feet) across the street, and I had to drop everything to join my neighbors who were watching him meander across people’s lawns. He’d wandered out of the marsh a few doors down but couldn’t get back because he kept running into fences.
Fun fact: Alligators aren’t dangerous to the human population unless we mess with them. Generally speaking, if you can see them someplace that isn’t a pond, they don’t really want to be seen. Here on Jekyll – because we’re a state park – we give all the creatures right-of-way because they live here. If we see an alligator in the road, we stop and let him go across at his own pace. If we see a turtle in the road, you put down your floormat and let them get on and then carry them the rest of the way across the road. Make sure you take him the direction he was already going, or you didn’t help at all!
But alligators you do not try to help. And don’t approach them either if you can help it. More than one bicyclist has slammed on the breaks at what they thought was a log in the paths. Again, if you stop and give an alligator space, they won’t bother you and will just keep going. We live in peace with them. If you go to Florida, it’s all different because Floridians hit them with purses and sticks to move them. Up here, we yield to the alligator. It’s the law. And a good idea.
Anyway, the gator yesterday strolled across three lawns and went up on a front porch and stood at the front door (pic above proves it) for a while before discovering that house didn’t have a backyard fence. We watched as he made his way around the side of that house and back toward the marsh. Those neighbors were out of town, so we didn’t call to warn them about the alligator in their backyard (something that’s just neighborly courtesy in the south).
If the alligator hadn’t gone home, we would have called Ranger Ray to get him removed – we have a wildlife snitch line that is absolutely necessary here on Jekyll. But it was nice not to have to bother our resident ranger on a Sunday evening because the visitor left on his own.
I know it’s scary – would have terrified me two years ago – but now I’m just bummed that our grandchildren weren’t here to see it up close and personal. Some of them have taken the Gatorology class offered by the Jekyll Island Authority and met and petted baby alligators. But this guy wasn’t a baby. And we weren’t about to pet him.
Our friends, Stacy and Craig, are arriving tomorrow and then my girlfriend, Cristie, will be joining us before 4th of July. This is the first time I’ve seriously taken a vacation with my friends who visited – I don’t plan to work next week at all, but I will try to blog.
Bill and I are looking forward to showing off how good we are at setting up the perfect beach day and I’m also looking forward to yet another beach cart being delivered this week. Yes, we bought the fancy cart with the big fat wheels and we never had a problem last year. But so far this year, we’ve had less rain and so the sand is softer (we usually have crazy-hard sand because of high tides, too). I’ve already gotten stuck twice this season. It could be that my shoulders have issues and so tugging it behind me is harder, but my friend Kate had one yesterday that you could push or pull and that thing rolled right over the soft sand. So, I came home and ordered one from Amazon. I live at the beach, dammit, and I’m going to keep working at it til I have the perfect beach setup and all the gear we could ever want. We are getting old and we want all our stuff at the beach, so we need the best way to transport it, right? I figure we can still use the other fancy cart when the grands visit, and we need to haul more stuff to the beach. And the kids drag that one. Before you ask… no, we haven’t bought a golf cart yet. We usually borrow them.
Until next time, happy reading! I’m planning to go to the beach almost every day this week. I’ll let you know if I get any reading done or just spend all my time chatting with our friends.
Sandy