The day before we left, Chris and I took Claire and Maddie on an air boat ride in the Everglades while Carin stayed home with Amelia. It wasn't too far away, and we thought the kids would have a good time. Chris and I had been to the same place about four years ago with John and Carin. If you don't know what an air boat is, here's what one looks like.
It is a boat with a giant fan on the back to propel the boat in the water without propellers IN the water which could harm the alligators. Such a giant fan so close to you is quite noisy, so they give you ear plugs to protect your ears. Unfortunately, Maddie's ears were small enough they didn't stay in, so I did this instead:
We had fun on the boat, but because it was a breezy day, and alligators don't apparently like that, we were out for about a half an hour and only found one alligator at the very end, but he was a big one! He wasn't very happy to have us around either. He was RIGHT next to the boat which was a little scary. These are not zoomed pictures.
After the boat ride, we went to a little zoo area where they had more alligators, other reptiles, and a few other animals. (I HATE snakes, so have no desire to share those pictures Chris got.)
They even had a little baby alligator that we could hold. Claire thought she wanted to hold him, but then got scared. I held him (Chris was glad he was holding the camera) as I remembered doing when I was a teenager once, and convinced the girls to pet him. Chris didn't get a picture of me actually holding him because he peed on me and I quickly gave him back. I assure you though, those are my arms.
It was a fun, adventurous day for us! I never know what Maddie will think of things. She's kind of quiet sometimes, but it turns out that to her, this was one of the highlights of our trip. Despite her straight face while we experienced it, later she was telling everyone about this - family, waitresses, other strangers, and included it in her prayers for about a month. This and Sea World really stuck with her. I guess she liked the boat ride. :)
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