Rhonda woke up early and went into town and got us coffee and some breakfast from Sonic. We sat with our coffee on the dock in the beautiful morning light. As we sat there and enjoyed the natural beauty, I learned a few things to add to my wildlife biology knowledge - bluegill love tater tots. I tossed a few pieces into the tea-colored water and watched them slowly sink towards the bottom. Within a couple of seconds they would disappear with a splash. I know its probably just plain wrong to feed wild fish a bunch of greasy tater-tots, but after the first one, I couldn't stop. I'm sure I left a couple of teenaged fish with pot bellies and acne. Back home, we've been working on recording a CD of old Gospel songs with my friends that play at the Roots Music Gospel Jam. We brought along some recording equipment in hopes of recording a vocal track with Rhonda's sisters. We decided to go over to the Ocala Farm Ministry and record some guitar tracks with Rob, using the Reborn guitar I had sent him a couple of years ago.
We met him at their building as it was very quiet on Sunday. Well apparently Sundays are different than Wednesdays. Today there were couple of a chainsaws working on the property next door. And a tractor mower...and a chipper...and a jack hammer. Ok, some of that is pure exaggeration, but it was rather loud. But it takes more than that to deter Rhonda. We set up and had a nice morning of singing and guitar pickin'. Rob's a pretty dang good guitar picker if you can get him to sit still long enough. I think we got enough material to take home and work with.
After we shook hands and said goodbye to Rob, we drove about 50 miles to Crystal River to see manatees. The majority of the remaining manatees in the world are concentrated in this area of rivers and lakes. But we got to the dock 5 minutes after the last tour departed. So, we bought a plush manatee toy from the gift shop and a post card. We drove to the post office and mailed it to Conner. We both remember how much fun it was as a kid to get mail. On Friday he'll get his first package from the mail man. The time will come soon enough when the mailman brings only bills and junkmail, so we've committed to send him mail every time we travel.
I got a phone call from Captain Bob, who owns an airboat and gives tours, I had contacted him a few days ago, but he'll only go out if you have 5 people. We were in luck as 3 folks from Scotland were wanting a tour at 4'oclock. We clinched the deal and would meet him at the Blue Gator dock.
We met Captain Bob and jumped in the front seat of the boat. For the first mile, we idled along through the 5 mph no wake zone. We passed by the little dock in front of the Bird House and continued along. This was the same route that Rhonda and I had taken in the canoe. I listened as that loud-mouth Captain Bob told about the hundreds of gators in the area, "See that big log? I saw a 12 footer there yesterday". bla bla bla bla...10-footer over there... bla bla bla... I was avoiding any eye contact with Rhonda, but even looking away, I could feel her icy glare. A couple of days ago, when I had proposed we take a canoe ride, I had guaranteed her there were no gators in this part of the river. I made up all kinds of believable sounding reasons why they wouldn't be here and cashed in all my clout as a professional wildlife biologist. Now, that babbling Captain Bob was really making me look bad. I finally made eye contact with Rhonda and gave her my eye-rollin'-head-shake look to let her know that Captain Bob was just spewing some BS to scare the 3 old Scottish folks. I was sure that after a couple of hours in the boat, we'd not see a single gator and I could reclaim my clout as a professional wildlife biologist.
Captain Bob eased the boat through a little opening between some trees. Rhonda and I had maneuvered the little canoe through the same opening 2 days earlier. Well, as often is the case when you're hiding a lie, something big will rear its head out of nowhere to expose your secret. In this case, the ugly head was connect to about 200 lbs of Florida alligator and it flopped into the water with a magnificent splash.
It is well known that everyone pays some price for a lie. I'm still paying for mine with a lingering and aching crick in my neck from spending the next 2 hours with my head cocked to the side to avoid having to look Rhonda in the eye. Given the nature of this PG rated blog, I'm not at liberty to recount the one-sided rant that took place in the car the moment the door slammed shut. But suffice to say, in all future endeavors, I'll be much more forthcoming about any potential risks associated with our activities.
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