“ahhh!”

Today was an eventful day! I couldn’t wait to write about it.

So it was arranged that Bonnie would be at my house at approximately 10 00 AM, and we would scooter up to an ice cream parlor near my house and get some ice cream, then stop off at the pet store and get her a new net for sifting hay out of Tonka’s water bucket (her last one she’s had for years; it doesn’t do much good).

So she came over, and we played outside, and got ice cream & the net, and went to the park, and then I got permission to go over to her house! We’d really wanted to go to this park by her house that has a longlonglong trail that ends up at this pond. But Laura said no, so instead we decided to go over to the NO TRESPASSING VIOLATERS WILL BE PERSECUTED nature preserve across from her house. Turns out her dad had once called a county, and since they were residents, they could go in after all.

First of all, let me say this: the nature preserve is a nature preserve. It has nature within it that would naturally live in Florida. One of those animals is the wild hog (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/LyraEDISServlet?command=getScreenImage&oid=3369299). Bonnie’s gone there with her parents and by herself since she was six years old! So we got to the preserve and walked down the main path, turning onto an old overgrown one. “Wow... This place has grown a lot since I was last here,” remarked Bonnie.

So, it turns out we went down the wrong path! Once Bonnie had figured that out, we were both more than happy to hightail it out of there. We kept going, and I was freaked out about the pigs (it sounds unbelievable, but one actually chased a hunter up a tree in there; the police came and found him. I don’t remember the details...). Bonnie told me she’d never seen one in the all the times she’d never seen/heard/found any kind of a sign of wild pigs except for a large number of wallows. (They look like this, only in a deep, dark abandoned woods:
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/hog-wallow-tejon-4-13-02.jpg) I was freaked out until Bonnie told me they were small (I thought they were the size of cows. What?!); like potbellied pig size.

We got to the “oak glade,” as they called it, and we found around fifteen flipping wallows! It was fun at that point, though – no wild pigs around.

“See, there’s a wallop.” –B
"Ohhh! And that’s one too?” –me
"Yes.” –B (I’d been asking her if every small dirt bump was a wallow! *laughs*)
”And that’s another one!”
”Yeah...”

So we were about to turn the corner and go deep into the woods when we heard some freaking rustling in the bushes! Like, not lizard/armadillo/squirrel rustling. Like, big freaking animal rustling. And, oh yeah. A grunt like this:
http://www.junglewalk.com/Asounds/pig_grunt.wav

At that time, I decided I would haul ass out of there. So I turned. And ran. As fast as I could. Out of there. For a long time. Bonnie was mad, because she waited a little longer to leave (“Oh my god, I was so stupid!”). She waited to see if it was a hog, since she couldn’t believe one actually appeared. She heard a squeal. Then she hauled ass, too – and fall on her face as she tripped on a wallow. She was angry because I was so far gone, I didn’t even notice. *laughs* Ooooops.

So, yeah. We had 1 near-death experience, but escaped with no wild pig chasing us. “Let’s keep going!” Yeah, we’re dumb. We don’t even know why we didn’t go back home.

We kept walking until we’d almost reached the end of the reserve. There was a dried-up riverbed for part of it, but then we got to a place where the water was all green and algae-ish and gross. I’d like to point out now that I am freaking scared of alligators. It’s been a chronic fear of mine for around four or more years now. Fun, huh?

So, I saw bubbles in the water. “Oh, god!” I’d just been thinking about how it was, like, perfect gator habitat. I told Bonnie about the bubbles, but she thought the water was a little too scummy – even for gators. But she was interested in the bubbles. “Probably just a fish...”

Still, I was scared, so we ran back anyway. But Bonnie really wanted to reach the end of the reserve, and I felt a little silly/embarrassed about running from bubbles, so we turned back. Bonnie was a foot from the riverbank’s edge, making sure she didn’t look at the water and freak herself out. and I was on the edge of the path, staring in; quite panicked.

We keep going... And going. For one or two minutes. I look at the water and do a double-take. Oh my friggin’ god! An alligator head, sure enough, and just beneath the scummy surface was the perfect outline of its body. It was around... 7-9 feet long? Good lord! We were right beside it, too. I grabbed Bonnie by the shoulder and said quietly, but urgent: “Oh my god, there’s a gator!”

She looked at me, kind of freaked out. “Seriously?” [note: she thought I was kidding because she knew I wanted to go back and have chronic gator fear)

“Yes! Run!” I was close to tears; we turned and ran like hell. For... a very long time. Which is why I nearly passed out afterwards. This one time, a group of other homeschoolers & my family took a field trip to the dump. There was a park nearby, with a lake. A couple of guys from the group started playing catch with a football, and it fell into the lake. So, the head hauncho of the boys, of course, Casey, went to go get it. And. He fell in. So he was laughing and getting the ball, and we noticed a gator. Approaching him. We all yelled, and his mom actually jumped in and got him out. Turns out, people had obviously been feeding that gator (look up gator feeding). That was a few years ago, but I had a well-developed fear by then. I ran to the car and locked myself in and wouldn’t come out. And then we left. ^^;

Anyway, after two possible near-death experiences, we ran/jogged/ran panicked for our lives all the way home. Fun, huh? An exciting day. I’m still freaked out! It was so, so, so terrifying. And yet fun. In an adrenaline-rush-ohmygod sort of way. Like watching a horror movie to creep yourself out... something like that.

No lesson because of the hike. I do think I’m sick again, though. Which really flipping sucks :(

written from my laptop, finished 11 45 PM [Sun Feb. 15, 2009]