Came Along a Dolphin, He Said "Jolly Mon, Hello!"

I wanted to post some photos from my recent road trip before I forgot I had them. I don't ever want to be one of those people who takes tons of photos and never gets them off the computer. Taking a look at them today was the first step towards getting them printed! My friend Meg spent three months training at Marineland, which is a dolphin conservation center right outside of St. Augustine, Florida. Lucky for me, that means I got to get up close and personal with some of the dolphins! They were extremely playful and definitely showed off for the camera.

This guy is tossing water up in the air and catching it in its mouth...


This guy is clearly posing...


And this guy came right up to where I was standing and smiled...

Okay, I admit that these might all be the same dolphin, but they might not be. Hopefully when Meg reads this post, she'll clarify who's who and I can make the corrections. Here are some other guys I saw while I was there:

This is Petey, the turtle. If you drag your finger along the surface of the water, he totally follows it.


This is a very scary, yet photogenic, eel...


After we went to Marineland, we stopped at the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. It's a zoological park, which means it's only a little less cheesy than a kitschy tourist trap. We got to see feeding time, which included giant alligators eating dead rats. Awesome! Mainly, the alligators just hung out.


They're scary on the land or in the water. Which means, of course, that when given the opportunity, we had to hold one. So, we coughed up the money and had our picture taken holding a baby alligator. Meg held the part with the mouth (I'm no idiot) and I got the back end and the tail. I was really surprised by how soft and smooth and leathery its belly was. The weirdest part was that the alligator's mouth was held together by Scotch tape. It looked like someone literally took Scotch tape and wound it around the poor thing's snout. It reminded me of when you buy lobsters and the lobsters have the tight elastic bands around their claws. I digress. So, that was the first day of the road trip. I have to get back to my people pictures, but I'll post more from the trip later!