Later gator

Years ago, Angelo and I had a conversation in which we were ranking animals.

They actually said that capybaras were trendy, over-rated trash animals.

How we survived that moment, I will never know.

Then it got worse. Angelo said - I kid you not - alligators are better than horses.

Alligators.

Heresy!

I should have unfriended them right then and there, but somehow we got past it.

Mostly.

I lived in the South for seven years, but Mid-South, not Deep South. 

I've never seen an alligator in the wild.

On the drive from New Orleans to Ocean Springs, Carol told me there are occasional alligator sightings in her neighborhood. Of course, this led to us looking up the locations of the most recent reptile human encounters and going there. For posterity, I snapped a photo and sent it to Seth...

and Angelo.

Sadly - or maybe not - we were unsuccessful in our attempts to find free ranging alligators, but Carol had a back-up plan. The day after we went to Wild Acres, we were back in the car heading to Gulf Coast Gator Rand & Tours in Moss Point, Mississippi.

We paid our admission and bought a cup of alligator food.

I didn't know what to expect, but it looked and felt like grittier, denser, mostly odorless charcoal.

We stepped outside and suddenly there were alligators everywhere.

Ugh. So many.

We went up to the fence and started throwing.

Weirdly, feeding gators turned out to be a lot more exciting than I'd expected.

I made and sent two videos, one for Seth...

and one for Angelo.

Eventually, we ran out of food, which was fine because it was time to climb onto an airboat and go on a swamp tour.

This was also surprisingly fun.

The swamp was beautiful and also, very peaceful.

I didn't see a single alligator.

We got back to the ranch, went inside and bought another cup of food.

Alligators are absolutely, positively not better than horses - or capybaras - but there's no denying that I enjoyed my visit to the alligator farm.

Please do not tell Angelo, but I would be happy to go there again.