Florida Gators

The very first time Brad asked me if I would consider living in Florida I said, "Um... yes but, I'm kinda scared of alligators." He asked if I was serious and I said yes I really was afraid of alligators. He said, "No! I meant would you really seriously consider moving there?"
There was an engagement, marriage, and honeymoon that took place before the option to move to Florida actually became a consideration. And in all my trips to Florida I had yet to see a single gator. However, I still was afraid of being chased and eaten one night while out for an evening jog.
Let's be honest, there are millions of people who live in Florida, and you rarely, if ever hear about a human being eaten, so I realized that my gatorphobia might be a little ridiculous. But one night Brad kindly spent an hour with me looking up how fast gators can run and the likelihood of being killed by a gator to bring a little more peace to my heart. For the record, you should NOT run zig-zag to outrun a gator (seriously, once I realized most native Floridians think that, I knew I should probably not worry about happening upon a hungry gator often).
Since there had been much discussion of gators before moving to Florida, I was a little disappointed I hadn't seen a single one wandering down the street or climbing out of a random pond, although I definitely only wanted to catch a glimpse from a car, or from many yards away.
Brad and I decided that we needed to pay a visit to GatorLand so I could catch a glimpse of not just one, but MANY gators, and find out all about them since we were to co-exist in our new city. It was AWESOME! If you're planning a trip to Florida and time is limited, this is probably not something to put above Disney and Universal, but if you have the same fear and fascination of large reptiles I do, it is worth a few hours of time.
We watched a 5-year old girl feed a whole bunch of alligators, we watched a guy wrestle a gator, we walked through the homes of several crocs, and we even got to wrestle a gator ourselves (and by wrestle I mean we got to sit on a gator with his mouth taped shut and get our picture taken). Yeah that's right, we SAT on an ACTUAL GATOR!! It was AWESOME!! I wasn't going to do it, but Brad said I needed to, and since we had just moved here and we paid for my picture, they let him do it too for free! Sweet!

The Gator expert. This one didn't have his mouth taped shut!

Me looking a little unsure of whether this was a good idea.

Me feeling a little more confident... or ready to appear so.

Brad taking the bull by the horns... I mean the gator by the jaw.

Do you see all those gators???