Family Gathering at Gatorland

When my nephew offered to come see us while we were in Florida, I knew I had to pick someplace different since he lives in this state and probably knows the Orlando parks like the back of his hand.  We also knew we had to visit Gatorland because Corbyn was so convinced Gators were littered all over the state that we would not be safe any time we were there!  As it happened, we never saw a gator "not in a cage", so it was very fortunate that we visited this wonderful place!  And my nephew and family had never been here either!

Not knowing exactly when we would arrive, or when they would arrive, we just agreed to find each other and it worked out perfectly!  Corbyn was a little disappointed that, yet again, he was going to meet girl cousins, with the exception of their Dad, who is also a cousin!  But it did not take long for the ice to break and the three of them got along just like cousins always do.

This was the most amazing place, with hundreds, if not thousands of gators of all sizes and a few crocodiles also in amongst them.

One of the first things we observed was a new person being taught how to catch and tape up the mouth of an alligator.  These gators were not all that big, but to simply stand in that pen and grab a random gator and tape up his mouth is more than I would ever be brave enough for.  Once the little guy was taped up, the trainee took it around for everyone, including Corbyn to be able to touch!

One of the highlights of the day was the Jumping Gator show. This is where two men hand feed chicken to the larger alligators.  At one point, it looked like their hands were only about 4 inches away from those huge and mean looking mouths!

how do you learn to do this?

We had purchased a "grunt"ticket which allowed us a few extras like getting hotdogs to feed the alligators, getting a train ride around the park (which we could not do since the weather changed so quickly), and a few other things, again, the day got cut short due to severe weather.  It cost $7 extra and was probably worth it, if we could have spent the whole day there.  But this was impossible due to Mother Nature.

Once the entire population of visitors to the park huddled for almost an hour in the only gift shop, we decided to tough it out and make a run for the cars.  Well, the men did!  And then we travelled back to our villa for dinner and a sleepover!

The kids were tired but happy and ended up watching a bit of television lying on the couch.  One of them was heard to say "we are just like the gators, all piled onto each other"!








We had a fabulous time together, that was entirely too short.  They had to get up early and head back home and we had parks to visit!  So a sad farewell was said by all and we went our separate ways!

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." ~Jane Howard