Brazos Bend State Park:
Gator Bait!
Being from Louisiana, there’s only one word to describe my reaction to an alligator: Cool!
See, I’m from North Louisiana. When we’re being honest, like right now, Shreveport is a lot more Texas than it is Terrebonne.
Surely you can understand my reaction, then, when I found out there’s a Texas State Park about an hour from Houston notorious for how many alligators roam the premises. If you can’t guess, it was somewhere between “I have to go!” and “Where’s my telephoto?!”
My first trip to Brazos Bend State Park, to be honest, started out on a bit of a quiet note. Jess and I saw some ducks, quite a few trees, and even a number of signs implying that there SHOULD be gators all around. Gators, though? None seemed handy.
And then all of a sudden, something changed. You know that moment when you’ve just missed stepping on an alligator without realizing it because you were deep in conversation or trying (trying…) to practice Mandarin with a lovely Chinese couple or maybe were just messing with the ISO on your camera? No? Well, thats the moment I had. And just like that, there were alligators seemingly everywhere!
At which point my immediate thought was, of course: “I should bring my little sister and two young cousins here for quality time together!” Never trust me with your children, folks.
Conveniently, when I came back with The Sister there were far fewer alligators around and the ones we did see were quite small. Not even big enough to bite a hand off, by my estimation.
Which is good, because how would you explain that little incident away come next Thanksgiving?
I liked this article but how did your mom feel about it??
I think we gave her a little fright once she saw the pictures. It was too late to say no by then, though!
hhhmmmmmmmmmmm!!
Hhhmmmmmmmmmmm?