Gators in the Mangrove

Alright, I know I've been horrible about posting the past few weeks but I sincerely have had legitimate excuses. Enough is enough, though and I do plan on getting better!

Here are, yet again, more pics from Florida. This time we took a little excursion on an airboat through the mangroves.This picture needed a little spooky mystery about it, thus the ghostly black and white effect.

Butch was our guide and he was exactly how you would expect a guy named Captain Butch would be out in the mangroves maneuvering an air boat. He's pictured there behind my sister-in-law. There's Kev-Dog and Hantie on the left...they are the newlyweds that had the great idea to get married on the beach and let us be a part of it for an entire week! Oh, and that guy on the right, that's Nano. Neon Nano, I might add.

Oh look, another family portrait...the fiery pit below has for sure frozen over yet again!

And my boys...

Alright so I know you are probably wondering what we saw, right? It was definitely all about the wildlife and whether or not we were going to get to see a gator, because why else would we travel to the middle of nowhere to have a big boy named Butch steer us into the middle of a mangrove! Here were some cool things we saw:

This guy flew right onto the front of the boat. Why hello, what's your name? I could lift my hand and touched him if I had wanted to, he was that close to us.

The pelicans are so ancient looking, it really looked like I was peering into the eyes of a prehistoric pterodactyl. Oh and this could only have been taken with the telephoto lens that I rented. Love it!

And the best part of it all? This ridiculous gator lurking in the mangrove. What can't see him? Exactly the reason why I wouldn't play hide and seek with a gator in the mangrove!

I would venture to guess he was 6-7 feet from tip to tail and his head alone had to have been 2 feet long.

I can't help but think of the alligator (or was it a crocodile?) in the Peter Pan movie with the clock-ticking music and his eyes jumping up and down.

Ol' Butch was a-hootin' and a-hollerin' (I'm from Arkansas and reserve the right to talk like that on occasion!) for the gator to come to the boat. And boy did he come to the boat...that over-exposed bottom right corner? That's the boat and he, too was within touching distance!