As an interim while I unpack and reorganize my life at home, I thought I might throw out pictures of a few alligators I encountered on my trip home. All but the last, which I warn in advance is dead and a bit battered, I found sunning themselves along the Loop Road off Tamiami Trail. Its a dirt road that I shall explore more thoroughly in an essay later, and it winds through some cypress swamps for 26 miles. I love it.
I didn't check the mileage but I'm guessing Sweetwater Strand is about 3 miles in from Monroe Station on Highway One. I rode the dirt at about 40 miles per hour, to keep the ride smooth over the washboard and I was pleased to see the Bonneville, loaded, was perfectly smooth and manageable. I passed a gap in the trees, a couple of miles in:
And I thought I saw a gray lump in the grass. Indeed I did, and this was it closer up (using the telephoto feature, not my feet):
Which was indeed an alligator, though not a very cooperative one. It reminded me of my dog when she was mad at me and plunked herself down with her back to me. I rode on down that white dry road. It's the end of rainy season in Florida the road was dry and in many spots the gravel was scraped clean off the roadway. There were quite a few cars too riding up and down throwing up huge plumes of white dust with no slowing down, no mercy for the geek on the motorbike. 
Sweetwater Strand is a classic watery cypress grove in the style people expect to see in the mythical Everglades, and it has gators, lots of them:
They are amazing creatures these dinosaurs, lying placidly in the water, grinning, and doing almost nothing. The weird part is when you turn around to take another picture, the alligator has slithered away so gracefully and silently you never even noticed. I was glad i was on the road and they weren't. I stopped to tank up on water well away from the gators:
But when one returns to the noise and bustle of civilization there is always the reminder, somewhere, that they have a lot more to fear from us, than we from them. Years ago I got a ticket for speeding on Tamiami Trail. I was driving from Fort Myers to Key West to visit a friend and at four in the morning I figured it was safe to cut through the Seminole Village areas at a steady 60 instead of slowing to the mandated 45 mph. The trooper told me that I needed to slow down in "that little car" (I was driving a Mazda MX6 which I didn't think of as little) because the gators were in mating season and all over the road. Evidence of what a car can do was on the side of the road this afternoon and very gory it was too:
Not nearly so scary after an encounter with a car. However there were bits of automobile grille scattered all down the roadway near by. An excessively close encounter and chalk one up to the humans, who, once again, didn't even stop to eat their prey, in the words of a very funny Far Side comic strip.
They are amazing creatures these dinosaurs, lying placidly in the water, grinning, and doing almost nothing. The weird part is when you turn around to take another picture, the alligator has slithered away so gracefully and silently you never even noticed. I was glad i was on the road and they weren't. I stopped to tank up on water well away from the gators:But when one returns to the noise and bustle of civilization there is always the reminder, somewhere, that they have a lot more to fear from us, than we from them. Years ago I got a ticket for speeding on Tamiami Trail. I was driving from Fort Myers to Key West to visit a friend and at four in the morning I figured it was safe to cut through the Seminole Village areas at a steady 60 instead of slowing to the mandated 45 mph. The trooper told me that I needed to slow down in "that little car" (I was driving a Mazda MX6 which I didn't think of as little) because the gators were in mating season and all over the road. Evidence of what a car can do was on the side of the road this afternoon and very gory it was too:Not nearly so scary after an encounter with a car. However there were bits of automobile grille scattered all down the roadway near by. An excessively close encounter and chalk one up to the humans, who, once again, didn't even stop to eat their prey, in the words of a very funny Far Side comic strip. 