Miami (not really): Dinosaur Sex

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

Remember recently when I mentioned that devoted partner and I have a vehicular compulsion that necessitates our jumping in a car and driving places just cause? Our recent trip to Miami was no exception. It's true that I had taken perhaps a trifle more sun than I should have, but it's also a bit of hard work to sit slothfully under the sun doing nothing save reading, occasionally sipping from a pina colada, and cooling off in the pool or ocean from time to time. A day of it is terrific. Two days can also be good. But a ceaseless stream of doing nothing can get old. Since we're throwing ourselves in the water for a good solid week later in June, we decided to forgo a bit of Miamian diving in favor of a needless toodle (toodle=touring) to the Everglades.

We even splurged and rented the Mustang convertible.

We started the day heading west towards Naples and a lovely area run by the Audubon Society known as Corkscrew Swamp. Sounds charming, no? For those fearful of malaria, the Corkscrew Swamp folks have constructed a 2 mile boardwalk through their patch of the Everglades - this is also good for families and persons of limited mobility. While the adventurer in you or me might scoff, considering how putridly hot interior Florida is, having the route mapped out for you ahead of time with no possibility of becoming lost, isn't all that awful.

I was the expert animal tracker (to see the whole (unfinished) set, click here), discovering icky bugs, raccoons and the first alligator of the day. Feeling as though we had accomplished our main task, finding an alligator, we took the long way home, stopping for late lunch at a fish place (bad idea - out of season + flavorless + deep-fried = bland and bad for you), before heading back east.

And then we stopped for Bob. We were driving along an unremarkable and very straight road when we passed two people standing on the side of the road not hitchhiking. They were looking at something. We drove about 200 yards before turning the car around and going back towards the people who we had decided had spotted alligator. This was a fortuitous choice because we then spent the next half hour or so harassing poor Bob (the name we have the alligator) as he tried to swim and ignore fish and just get on with his afternoon. There were also some massive, and massivly attractive-hued, grasshoppers which are in the full (unfinished) set of photos.

Now that we knew what to look for - other not-stranded motorists on the side of the road - we drove the boringest road with more purpose. And this is how we discovered what we discovered. Alligators. Doing it. Yes, for my first non-local outing with the new camera, I was privileged enough to be confronted by some of the worst light, the darkest subject matter, and lizard humping. Do not be confused by the seeming innocence of these shots. These alligators effed one another. Underwater for the money shot and away from the MANY prying eyes, but you knew what they were up to. Then they went at it a second time. As we were walking away a charming blond girl of 3 or 4 came scampering up yelling, "daddy, daddy, alligators!" She turned to me and said, "I think it's a boy and a girl." I told her I thought they were married. "Daddy daddy the alligators are married!" "How do you know, honey?" I told the father it was that the alligators were VERY FRIENDLY. How's that for some serious Discovery Channel shit?

Tomorrow: la comida de Cuba.