holidays ahead

i made it home from south carolina realitively unscathed :) the trip there was more about tying up loose ends and making sure my life is heading in the right direction rather than your typical beach vacation. i tied up loose ends and confirmed my current direction in life ...

although it was an emotionally draining week, i did manage to enjoy myself ( you didn't think i was going to head to the coast and not have fun did you????)

every morning i made a point of taking a nice long walk... sometimes on the beach, sometimes near the marsh. i'm very familiar with the area... i've been visiting there since BEFORE i was born

i have a healthy respect for the ocean and for the wildlife that lives in the area.

alligators tend to live in fresh water, not salt water. they often settle for the water traps on local golf courses.

one of the place i love to go while i'm in south carolina has a salt water marsh on one side of a causeway, and a fresh water lake on the other. the only things that separates the two is a road. the area is in a federally protected park. when the tide is high the water from the marsh often seeps into the lake, and when the tide goes back out some of the fresh water from the lake goes into the marsh...

the variety of shore birds and raptors that call that place home is amazing. every time i go there i see new birds that i've never seen before.

one morning while walking along the causeway in the park.. i noticed something highly unusual. i was the only one around.. the sun had just risen above the horizon. there was a young-ish gator walking around the salt water marsh. the tide was out, so there was a lot of mud, and a few tide pools left ... but still the gator wasn't where he should be.

i followed the gator up and down the marsh has he marched back and forth .. i assume looking for a way back into the fresh water. my thought was that he must have crawled out of the lake and into the marsh while the water was very high... because there is a wall of sharp rocks that line the causeway. in 43 years of visiting this place i have never seen a gator climb over those rocks... i've seen them pull their bodies up on the edge of the rocks and sun themselves.. but never pull their entire body onto the rocks. i guess i assumed that they couldn't climb the wall....

anyway.. the gator was starting to get anxious because the tide was coming back in.. and he was beginning to get surrounded by the salt water... he went to the edge of the rocks.. and pulled his body up a bit on the bottom of the rocks... i kept myself safely at the top of the rockwall... at least i believed i was a safe distance.......

the gator was not happy i had been stalking him, but they aren't aggressive by nature. the way i could tell he wasn't happy was because he stopped moving every time he realized i was watching him.. and he would wait until i walked a few yards away to start moving again.

once he was pulled onto the bottom rock.. i decided to get a bit closer. i took several shots i was probably 5 feet from the front of the gator.. but remember.. he was at the bottom of the rock wall ....

after taking all the shots i wanted too... i started walking backwards to see if i could get a different perspective..... and in a blink of an eye.. that gator ran up the rock wall and onto the sidewalk where i had been standing just moments earlier :|

my heart nearly stopped..... but.. it was clear that gator wasn't interested in eating me, or attacking me.. he just really really wanted to get back to the fresh water.

after he darted up the wall.. he took a leisurely stroll across the road.. never even giving me a second look. you can see.. he is only about 4ft at the most. his 12 foot momma was sitting in the fresh water lake across the causeway.... and i will NEVER stand at the top of the rock wall when she is sunning herself below

it was a great morning, and i learned a thing or two about gators that day

now i'm home.. back in michigan just in time to get the kids prepared for the start of school next tuesday.

i have a real vacation planned for the week after they start school. i will be heading to the UK to visit with my friends and to see how many castles i can explore.