Drive across Florida... and alligators in Gainesville

 After spending 2 nights with our friends in southern Florida, Josh and I headed home so he could attend the last 2 days of scout camp.  Our 9 hour drive ended up being much longer...  I took a detour to see the home of author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of the Pulitzer Prize book The Yearling, set in this part of Florida north of Gainesville; I read the book to Josh and Rachel last fall).

 This is where the little boy found his yearling

 Whenever we move to a new place, I always have a "wish" of something cool I want to do while there.  (I.e. in Guam -- go snorkeling in coral reefs; in England -- tour castles; in Germany -- eat apple strudel; in California -- hike in Yosemite; in Texas -- eat good Mexican food and BBQ).  In Florida, I wanted to see an alligator in the wild, but I hadn't seen one for the whole year we've lived here.  (Unless you count all the logs I saw while kayaking down rivers that I was sure were alligators until I looked closer...)

 So I couldn't resist another detour in Gainesville:  Paynes Prairie Reserve State Park.  I asked a woman working at a gas station where we could see alligators in the wild, and she told us we were guaranteed to see several at Paynes Priairie hiking trail.  I couldn't resist such a tempting detour.

 On the 3 mile hike, we saw beautiful wildlife, including lots of birds.

After walking about a half mile, we came to this sign.   In the photo above, there is an alligator on the right, in the middle of the trail.  Imagine my excitement as we neared this spot...  but Josh drew back and did not  want to pass the alligator.  As we approached, the alligator walked to the side of the trail (and I wasn't fast enough to get a video), so I passed the alligator (keeping a great distance) and called to Josh to catch up.

 Josh (on the left in the photo above) was terrified.  But he timidly caught up to me.  I would not be so brave if I were SWIMMING near an alligator, but I was confident that I could outrun an alligator on the trail, if necessary.  After our hike, I saw a sign near the parking lots explaining that alligators can run up to 10 miles an hour.  Oops...  that's faster than I can run.  I'm glad I didn't know that while we were hiking.

 This has got to be one of the most awesome experiences of my life (above) to be standing there with a wild alligator smiling at me. 

 As we continued our hike, we met some more roadblocks.  These wild horses were MUCH less scary for Josh.  There was no going around them, because who knew if there were alligators in the bushes along the sides of the trail?

 Two alligators (above).  This was like playing Where's Waldo or I Spy.  I kept thinking about the awesome video "Spiritual Crocodiles" by Boyd K. Packer (it's on Youtube if anyone wants to see crocodiles in action).

 More spectacular nature:  a caterpillar

 a butterfly

 a redwing blackbird (on the post above)

 a turtle

This was the most awesome nature hike ever.  I always enjoyed taking my children to zoos and animal centers, but this was far and above my favorite animal viewing!

After this adventure, we were on track to get home before midnight, in time to pack Josh up to be at the church at 6:30 a.m. for his ride to scout camp.  But an unforeseen delay occured...  4 hours from home, I got a flat tire on the freeway.  I pulled over, called our roadside assistance number, then we went down the hill on the shoulder and waited for help to arrive.  This was the most miserable part of the trip:  waiting in the dark while getting eaten alive by ants and mosquitoes.  After the man arrived and put our spare tire on for us, I casually mentioned how far we still had to go.  He told me that I should NOT drive that far on a spare tire, but I should take the next exit and wait until morning to have the tire replaced.  But we had SCOUT CAMP!!  AAARGH!!  But we took the next exit, drove to a 24-hour Walmart with an auto care place (that opened at 7 a.m.), borrowed a yellow pages and called around town to find that every tire place was closed for the night.  So we shopped for a while, then spent the night in our car in the Walmart parking lot.  Josh slept well, stretched out on the back bench in the van, but I didn't have a good night's sleep; the kind of people who come to Walmart at 2 a.m. are not the quiet type.  They're the wheel-screeching, drunk type.  So I kept waking up constantly, expecting to see a scary face looking in the window at us.  But we were safe and first in line at Walmart's auto/tire center the next morning.  Not only did they open up LATE, but they couldn't patch the tire and they didn't have a replacement.  So we went to another tire place in the little town and finally got on our way, getting Josh to scout camp a few hours late.  I took him straight to the camp site to save a few hours of driving, but in order for him to have his backpack and camping gear, we'd called Isaac the night before and asked him to pack Josh's backpack and take it to the church at 6:30 a.m. to send with the scout leaders.  Isaac was happy to pack for Josh, but unfortunately he was TOO happy to do it....he reverted to his "scout prank days" as he packed Eliza's swim suit bottoms for a swim suit, packed his (Isaac's) old boxer short for Josh's undies, wrote a love letter and signed it from a girl in Josh's primary class, put in Madi's stuffed Hello Kitty instead of a pillow, added books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc.  Poor Josh had to hike 5 miles with that heavy pack.  Not knowing how thorough of a packing job Isaac would do, and because we had hours to spare in Walmart, Josh bought a lot of new camping gear and mini toiletries.  I told him, "Josh, you have me in a weak moment.  You could probably get anything you asked for right now in Walmart."  Because we were so tired, and Josh had been so scared of the alligator (but brave and quiet about it), then so miserable while waiting for the tire to be changed, and he wanted to badly to be there in time for scout camp, and I just felt bad for what he'd gone through.  And we weren't spending money on a hotel.  So Josh got new undies, new socks, and fun snacks for breakfast along with his cool camping gear.  It was a memorable day.