“You must be Jimmy!”
What a cheery and welcome greeting at the end of a truly awful trip. We drove from Ocala, Florida through teeming rain missing the view of Lake Okeechobee altogether, along mile upon dead straight mile of road through sugar cane groves in the

Everglades (and past the curiously out-of-place-looking Domino Sugar refinery, puffing and stinking on the horizon) and arrived on the Interstate in Fort Lauderdale in time for a frenzied rush hour on Thanksgiving Eve.An RV blocking the drive of the city campground – forcing us to stop in the middle of a busy road, left turn indicator blinking – had been turned away. The driver slunk from the gate and gave us a desultory shrug as if to say you’ll be lucky before he climbed back in his camper to drive off. We had reservations.
The campground gate commandant smiled, moved two traffic cones and waved us in from across the road. “Washington! What a beautiful state! Do you live there?” He’d spotted our license plates. Thus began a lengthy question and answer session about how we arrived in the United States, why we lived in Washington for a time and why we now have no home.

“That’s fantastic! What’s your favorite place?” and he and Jimmy discussed the merits of Utah, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon, Montana, California, Washington, Colorado and just about every other state and landmark west of the Mississippi.
The park ranger was either very friendly or just having a slow day and needed some company. His peaked cap tried to hold down an explosion of grey curls. The smile on his weathered face was genuine.
“We’re a bit surprised by the heat and humidity this late in the year. Is that common this far south?” I asked him.
“Nah. It’s pretty unusual. We’ve usually had a cold snap by now. It would wipe out the mosquitoes but they’re still around.”
“Oh great. They’ll come after me. They love me,” groaned Jimmy.
“Yeah, me too,” he commiserated.
Excellent, I thought. Two deterrents for me.
“We saw our first iguana here about this time last year,” Jimmy told the chatty ranger.

“Yeah, they’re getting to be real nuisance.”
“Are you allowed to control them?” I asked. That’s squeamish speak for kill them.
“No, but they did take an eight foot alligator out of the pond two months ago.”
“Eight feet. That’s pretty big,” I said faintly. A glance at the map we’d been given showed that the pond referred to was only yards away from our campsite.
“We noticed that the ducks were disappearing and wondered why, then somebody saw the alligator. When they caught it they had to kill it. It would come back you know. What with the duck banquet.” Jimmy and I were grimacing at this point and unable to think of a suitable reply. “It’s bound to happen. The park is surrounded by water and they come down the canal.”
We’d just driven the length of the North New River Canal, or alligator speedway it would seem, that drains south from the Everglades and feeds into Fort Lauderdale.
“Then there are the snakes.”
My mouth dropped open. “What kind of snakes?”
“Oh people have them as pets and they get too big.”
“What kind of snakes?”
“Then they flush them down the toilet or just throw them in the waterways.”
“What kind of snakes?”
“They’re not native to here.”
“WHAT KIND OF SNAKES?”
“Pythons.”
“PYTHONS!?!”
“Now here’s a story they will tell around here for years to come,” he continued gleefully, his grey ringlets springing out madly. “Did you hear about the python that fought the alligator in the Everglades? A 13 foot python and a six-foot alligator. They say they were pretty evenly matched. The python swallowed the alligator whole then exploded.”
We laughed just to humor him and drove off to find our campsite. We questioned being back in Ft. Lauderdale where the wild life had proliferated so and the ground rumbled underfoot like an earthquake every time the main line Amtrak train passed 50 feet away.
But if you put your fingers in your ears to drown out the traffic noise from the busy road into the city center, choose a moment between the frequent trains thundering past and looked in a direction so as not to see the many RVs, the tarmac road and the plumbing and electrical hookups, you could imagine that you were in the deepest jungle. Palm trees and palmettos, lizards and parrots lent the site a tropical feel.

It was quite magical in the middle of a city.
Thanksgiving Day’s excitement was a massive explosion that seemed to be within feet of us. The shock wave went right through me, reverberating in my chest cavity. I thought we were under attack.
A few minutes later, a helpful neighboring camper saw us looking around and cycled up to us to explain. “The electricity will be on in about half an hour. I work for the electricity company. I called my friend and he’ll be right out. A squirrel took out the transformer.”
They have commando squirrels as well?
Convenient that an electricity trouble-shooter was on the campsite. Not so handy for the squirrel.

That python did swallow that alligator whole. It happened in 2005. There are estimated to
be 100,000 giant Burmese pythons in the Everglades. At an average length of 15 feet there were 284 miles of big nasty snakes with easy access to our trailer.
That particular python did explode. The duel-to-the-death details make gruesome reading.
They are completely taking over, the bounty isn’t working – way too much wildlife is disappearing – an entire ecosystem is being destroyed and no one seems to know what to do. Thank you for advertising the situation.
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A creature that can eat an alligator is a difficult problem to tackle.
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You had me convinced to avoid Florida at the mere mention of large snakes slithering unabated. No need to throw in poor punctuation and weather disasters!
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We LOVE Florida! Don’t be put off. I have been known to use the teensiest bit of artistic license from time to time. 😯
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Now you are making me nervous! We are now in Florida and pretty scared after reading your post 😦
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Don’t be scared! All alligator photos taken with a long lens and in protected areas. We never stumbled on frightening animals unexpectedly! Enjoy your stay and take lots of photos! I know you will. 🙂
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I’m in the same category as all the other commenters …. SNAKES?! ALLIGATORS?!
Shudder….
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More reptile discrimination! I think I need to bring back the gravatar pic of me holding Harvey the alligator to show how cuddly they are.
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Guilty as charged!
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I think I need to promote some reptile love! lol
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That certainly would have been a dreary drive in the rain. Interesting read- thanks!!!
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Thanks! Things livened up once we got to Ft Lauderdale! 😯
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hahhaahahahaha… my old home town… it never disappoints! 😀
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Excellent writing, if I may say so – I could just see that man with the gret springlets in his hair 🙂 A squirrel took out the transformer? Geeesh! Our squirrels aren’t like that. Your life is so exciting. I feel boring now. My pythons aren’t even big enough to choke on the cat, but I feel safer that way.
Was it a squirrel like this?
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He looked just like that! I’m sure that was him. What did you put in his coffee?
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Oh, just caffeine. the cortisone shots cost extra 🙂
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It must be that French roast. Yankee coffee barely gets me out of my chair.
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I can remember the non event of tasting Starbucks coffee. I immediately baptised it “sock juice” – sucking the doormat would have more flavour.
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Hate Starbucks coffee. Ugh. Always bitter. Hope our opinions don’t start a riot.
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Snakes, alligators, lions, bears all they are trying to do is get as far away from you as they can…. but wearing fancy perfumes might just bring them closer to see how pretty you are…
Our ancestors lived with more of them than we do and they survived…
I did have a good laugh at this post, must admit Linda is scared sh..tless of snakes and nearly has a heart attack when I handle them… so any news like that when visiting a place is kept a secret, otherwise I’d never get her to stay…
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Handling snakes? Are you a snake charmer? And don’t forget our ancestors lived to an average age of about 35 not so long ago. It was probably snakes that shortened their lives.
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And I just thought our rattlesnakes were bad. Geesh! Stay safe! 😉
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We saw a lot of alligators but not living it up in Ft Lauderdale. Pythons never made an appearance. They were probably hiding under at trailer at night.
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In reference to comment about mountain lions, etc., I agree, I much prefer the prospect of mammals that could eat me to the thought of snakes slithering about. At least you know to stay out of the forest at certain times of day, snakes – UGH!
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I’m sensing some prejudice against reptiles with my followers! 😯
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I too am shuddering. As much as I like Florida, there are things that definitely do not appeal to me. Yep, I think I’ll stay west 🙂
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What? With the coyotes, mountains lions, bears, scorpions, tarantulas, bobcats and rattlesnakes? I can’t see much difference between the two! 😉
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just a preference 😆
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I’d take my chances with a bear or mountain lion any day of the week rather than deal with snakes or alligators. I shuddered multiple times while reading this post.
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A big strong girl like you? I’m not into confronting wildlife of any kind. I like to see it from the car or at a (great) distance in a zoom lens. I didn’t mean to make you shudder – only with laughter!
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Not sure what it is about reptiles, in any form. Nothing quite grosses me out like a reptile. Little garden variety snakes have been known to make me jump 4 vertical feet. And that was before I became more athletic. If I saw one now I’d launch myself into space.
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I don’t wish you any harm, of course!, but that would be funny to see! lol 😆
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No doubt it would be. 🙂
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