Gators!!!!

I spent late last week in the Corpus Christi area, as part of my attempt to explore Texas in the short time I am here. Corpus wasn't too bad outside of the refineries. We went to the Padre Island National Seashore, which had some really cool beaches. Also a ton of Portuguese man of wars, which are a jellyfish. A beautiful blue with really long tentacles that I understand sting the hell out of you, even after they wash up on the beach and die.

Then we went to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. I wanted to go because they have the rare whooping crane. I am pretty sure I saw one. It was just where they said it would be and it was really big and white with markings on its head, but it was far away and late so there were lots of shadows and I couldn't really differentiate the markings. But I think that's what it was anyway.

We had some extra time before sunset so we decided to walk along this little trail the people at the visitor's center recommended. It was called the Heron Flats Trail. I thought, cool, we can see some herons. And we did see some, as well as some storks, which seemed awfully small to be delivering babies to homes, but whatever. Anyhow, we walk along and what do we see across the water but an alligator. Now, I have never seen an alligator in the wild before. It was pretty crazy. But I thought, if there is an alligator on one side of the water, there certainly could be on the other side too.

And about 100 yards down the trail there was. Right by the trail.

Now, you would think they would give warnings about these sorts of things. But no, in the literature on the trail they give out, they say to look out for raccoons. Maybe that's because the alligators have eaten most of them.

I have no idea how to deal with a freaking alligator. So needless to say, we turned around and got the hell out of there.

Does anyone know what to do if you run across an alligator? Throw it a piece of chicken and run?

Crazy.