I have just a small update today. Yesterday at the beach tired us all out so much we decided to take a break and explore the town some. We figured we'd take the kids to a park, let them play on playground equipment, maybe take a walk alongside the pretty marsh next door afterwards. Depending on how the kids felt after that, we thought we might possibly see a local serpentarium that we'd heard a lot of good things about. So we went to the park, walked up to the playground, and were stopped by a couple who had just left because, they said, there was a wild raccoon on the grounds. Well. That stopped me cold. Cute though they may be on television, in real life I will not come near a raccoon, nor let my family get near one. Just too many risks, what with that pesky rabies thing, know what I mean? And even if they're not rabid they can still shred you to pieces if they don't take a shine to you. So we searched high and low all around the playground area - didn't see anything - and then SM walked a few yards up a bike path, and there it was. The bandit himself. I shoo'd both kids as far away as we could get without actually falling into the road, and SM tried scaring the thing away. Well, now we both know, although we didn't at the time, that that's just a dumb idea. This raccoon got within four feet of SM before they both realized that that's not really what either one of them wanted, and they went to their separate corners. Luckily, it was not rabid, just hungry and way too used to people for anyone's own good, but it's just not something you want confirmed the hard way. So - get this, I actually said this, didn't realize how funny it sounded - "This is dangerous, let's just go to the Serpentarium instead." SM gave me this double glance, like, "You're weird sometimes." So we went.
Another way I'm weird: I don't mind snakes. I mean, I wouldn't want to sit in a bathtub full of them or anything, but generally speaking, I'm okay as long as we each keep a respectful distance from each other. Non-venomous snakes that are very used to people, like those at a zoo class or a talk at this Serpentarium, I don't even mind touching. Now, spiders are a whole 'nuther story. I don't do spiders, no siree, not one bit. But I'm okay with snakes. So we went in this place. I'm not going to keep calling it the Serpentarium because that's hard to type, so let's just use a nickname. The S. How about that? So we went to the S. They were doing a live demonstration, led by a very knowlegable and personable herpetologist. Another big word. The H lady. She discussed various venomous and non-venomous snakes, with live examples. One corn snake with a sense of humor wound himself around her ponytail, through the back vents on her safari vest (hanging down directly over her butt crack and then from side to side, poking out by her elbow), and generally making a nuisance of himself. After the talk was over, the H lady pulled out a rat snake (highly prized by farmers, we were told) and let us touch him. His name was Buster. The H lady showed us how he likes to have his throat scratched and rubbed, just like a cat. You could actually see Buster turning this way and that - "a little more to the right, please" - and it gave him personality. We liked Buster. After the demonstration, we went to see the other residents of the S place. We saw some juvenile alligators getting fed - not very exciting, but cute - and then we saw their parents. Holy cow. This were big freaking creatures. The alligator at the zoo back home never, ever moves. I don't think I've even seen him blink. Well, these guys move. One bumped into another one, causing the bumpee to give this almighty cough/growl/woof that made me and Sophie jump out of our skins. It was a gutteral, primal sound and it made us oh, so glad for the nice big fence between them and us. I think another alligator further down sneezed, if alligators do such things, but Sophie said it was something else, like a yawn that ended with a big impressive jaw snap. We didn't see it so we don't know for sure. But it made us jumpy as cats in a room full of rocking chairs, so we moved on. There were a couple of islands surrounded by big walls, and inside were trees just dripping with snakes. I know a few of you probably have to leave the room to throw up, so I'll just hang out here and wait for you to come back. IF you come back.
*****
Back now? Good? Everybody still here? Okay. No more snakes. There were a couple of giant alligator snapping turtles and an iguana, and a kick-butt gift shop. There were indoor exhibits of venomous non-legged creaturs (I said I wouldn't talk about them again) and a fossil room showing giant shark teeth from way before Nixon. A good time was had by all. Thus endeth the day.
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