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Our next stop was one of our
inexpensive-type stops. My nephew Stan and Missy Arrington's
driveway. Stan had always been an outdoor, woodsy type guy. He was
now a forester, and a dutch oven cooking expert. They had a fenced
back yard, except at the back, which was bordering a bayou. They had
a big, pretty white rabbit that had the run of the place. One day,
Missy was at the kitchen window, and a large gator came up out of the
Bayou and gobbled the pretty white rabbit up. They have two children,
Mandy and Thomas. Mandy was always all about horses, growing up, and
she is now about to get a masters degree in horse knowledge. I'm just
not sure what that degree would be called. When we woke up the next
morning, at daylight, Thomas, a small boy then, walked by our RV and
disappeared from our vision. When we came out of it, later, he was
just sitting up in top of a tall tree, just looking. Thomas went on
to achieve, in college, membership in that group of nearly naked,
painted young men that you might see at Mississippi State football
games. He now seems to have matured, however, because he's about to
travel to the Philippines and spend a good bit of time traveling up
remote rivers, seeking unreached people for Christ. I would say he's
being promoted, how about you? Missy is a big wig at Mississippi
State.
We toured Savanna, with its Forest
Gump bench, where he sat with his box of chocolates on Chippewa
Square.
Our next stop was at Mark Twain
State Park, well out into the Okefenokee Swamp. The swamp was formed
when the Swanee River spread out over a wide area, 50 miles across.
It is a wild area that man was unable to successfully cross until
well up into the 1900's. I had been here before, on one of my Pork
and Beans Trips. Barbara had not. I wanted to give Barbara a real
taste of the swamp, but before heading out in a small boat, I gave
her the Gator lecture. I told her it was wintertime here, the gators
were cold, and would not try to come in our boat. But, we may be very
close to many. If you come close to one, and jump up and run, you
will swamp the boat, then we'll be right down in amongst' um'. Stay
still. A ranger told of getting a report of a boat being swamped,
people in the water. When they got there, they were still hanging
onto the boat, surrounded by 40 gators. Just looking. I called up
several foxes to a photo session with my predator call. Then it was
time to head to Florida.
We went down the west coast, and
saw so many different birds and other animals at reserves along the
way, I wouldn't even try to tell you about all of them. Sea Cows
stood out. Very large swimming mammals, about the size of a walrus,
but they had a habit of swimming just under the surface, and many got
cut up by outboards.
We left our RV at Miami, then
drove on down to the south most point of the USA at Key West. The
sunset was one of a kind, and everyone turned out for a big party at
sunset. We spent the night in a B&B, then back to Miami.
We toured the Everglades. A
foreign guy was taking a little trail ahead of us, and he ran back,
pointing, saying, “chicken! chicken!” It turned out to be one of
those big footed little birds, that walks around on lily pads. I
didn't know the name of it either, so I really don't know what the
purpose of that little story was. Certainly not educational.
Barbara and a large gator were
looking at each other. Barbara asked a ranger what was keeping him
from just coming and getting her. He said, “He's sizing you up. If
he decides he's bigger than you, he will.” Well, they were a pretty
good match, and she didn't give him time to make his decision. She
broke for the car. Barbara just has something that makes big animals
make a run at her, tame or wild. I have heard that a Gator can outrun
a horse for 20 feet, and I never believed those slow-seeming animals
could really do that, until I saw one make a run for a bird once.
They can come up on their toes and just fly for a short distance.
We had seen both of Florida's
coasts before, so we decided to head back up the middle. We drove
through endless acres of Sugar Cane to Lake Okeechobee. We camped
very near the lake on the south end. It is Florida's largest lake,
though shallow. I have heard of fishermen out in the middle of the
lake, seeing almost no land, swamping the boat, then going into a
panic, until they realize they can stand up.
That south end must sorta be like
an elementary school for small gators, since they abound, and will
crawl right up to the RV at night. One woman wanted to show Barbara
how a gator would go right for her fishing lure. It did, she jerked
it hard, and the lure flew back and slapped Barbara smack in the
face. Barbara got away from that woman.
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