go hike a mountain

February 24, 2008

Jesse woke up this morning and decided he needed to see an alligator. I took him to the boardwalk at Payne’s Prairie, but we didn’t see any here. There was someone photographing a pair of bald eagles across the street, but I didn’t have the right lens for bird photography, so I left them alone. This is what much of Payne’s Prairie looks like.

We took a pamphlet on Payne’s Prairie and saw that an area called Alachua Sink would probably have more alligators. The directions conveniently took us past a one of the houses I lived in with the ugliest stucco job and biggest rats in Gainesville.

We found the parking area for the Alachua Sink without any problems and I realized I had actually been there once before with my brother. There were a lot of oak trees with spanish moss.

We were fortunate to have such good weather. It was only 9am and the temperature had to be in the 70s. I also got a few mosquito bites.

About 15 minutes into our walk, we came across the first of many alligators. This one was sitting up a bank about 5 ft from the path.

Jesse swears the alligator was following us. He started out in the water and we spotted him from an observation platform just below. Every time we walked 5ft after that, he swam a little further in the water, until we stopped for a while and he decided to come waddling up the bank to stare us down. Pretty creepy.

A group of cranes was circling overhead and later a hawk or falcon.

We spent about an hour looking at the alligators and left to head back into town. We went by the Thomas Center, once the largest privately owned residence in Gainesville. Mr. Thomas donated it to the city and it now houses city offices and the grounds have a fountain, gardens, and plenty of grass to stretch out on. The magnolias, azaleas, and several tree roses were blooming.

We drove through the University of Florida and I showed Jesse where the football and basketball teams play, the Swamp and O’Connell Center, respectively. We drove past the dorms I lived in when I first got to school. We stopped at Lake Alice on campus to see if we could catch more alligators, but there were none sunning themselves close enough here. Instead, we saw something very peculiar. I thought I saw a fish floating above the water, and it turned out a black bird with a really long neck (probably a crane) had just caught a fish and was heading for shore while holding it out of the water. I wasn’t totally crazy. You can barely make him out in this photo.

He sat on a low-lying tree near the shore and tried beating the fish on the branch a few times before tilting his head back and gulping the fish whole. It was tough to see because there were so many trees in the way. We’ll see how the whole thing turned out on video later. Anyway, here’s the Baughmann Center across the lake.

And here’s a funny turtle we found on the shore. He had a weird anteater snorkle nose.

We got some lunch at Leonardo’s of Millhopper, the makers of the best damn garlic rolls I’ve ever eaten, and another favorite from my school days. Afterward, we made our way to Orlando to catch an Orlando Magic game. This time we had to buy $20 tickets because the cheaper ones were sold out. Because we got there about an hour before the game started, we got some free thunder sticks and free figurines. We looked like huge fans.

The Magic beat the Kings by 20 points, a huge difference from the Bobcats game we saw. Jesse joked that we’re like Ron Artest groupies since we’ve seen them play twice now. It was just a coincidence. I got a Geico gecko mask at the game, too.

We slept somewhere on I-75N on our way back to Navarre.

February 25, 2008

We had to drive the most boring stretch of I-10 on the way to my parents house, but made it there in reasonable time. We needed plenty of time to catch up on episodes of Survivor and Rock of Love 2 that my mom had recorded for us.

February 26 - February 29, 2008

We haven’t done much since we’ve been at my mother’s house. We’ve been to the carwash and to the grocery store. We’ve hung out in the sun and watched some movies at home. My brother came over and we went to see Semi-Pro in the theater. He had to give his dog a wash before she could come in the house because she was filthy.

He brought over some shrimp chips which I haven’t had in about 2 years.