On Memorial Day we drove out down a long road into inland Florida, hotter, more vegetation, humid. We passed ranches, some well manicured, some looked like not a lot had happened there in years. We drove past driveways where my cousin told me were shooting ranges, other driveways with big gates, other places that looked like no driveway just overgrown jungle. We drove to Lake Okeechobee. Pulled into a dirt lot and stepped out of the car, the earth crunched under our feet. A few small boats were right there in the waters edge with their fishing poles and nets, and they were there too, right there. The reason we drove out to this lake to begin with, Gators.

It was the first time in my life I had ever seen a gator in the wild. We brought the binoculars, so we could see them up close without having to be too up close. One was tiny and we could see all of it from the dam wall we walked up on. Looking down on it and smelling the fishy smells of the lakes edge, the gators stillness made us question if it was dead. But then that is its tactic, to float still, to seem like a log, to be so calm that it just blends in with the surroundings and then quick it can change and find its dinner.

Off the shores closer to the small fishing boats the bigger gators lurked, swimming closer and closer to the boats as they reeled in nets and lines, they and the men on the boats both seemed to be skilled fishers.

We walked down the trail in the blazing sun, hot, dry and then all this gator inhabited water, a massive lake with the other side impossible to see, going on forever across the flat Florida landscape.

We drove back toward Port St. Lucie, where we passed a whole community, modest houses built around an air strip. The homes had garages...for their airplanes.

We passed the ranches again, odd to see ranches with palm trees, and then we passed a road called "Summerlin" my cousin who works for FedEx told me when he first moved to Florida that was the last road on his daily route.

Additional thanks!!!!!

Also I got to mention a special shout out to Henry the Bulldog. Really kept an eye on me the whole time I was in Port St Lucie, checked up on me, make sure I had all that I needed. Answered the door when I arrived, checked on me before I went to bed, and made sure I was cool each morning.