Last Day in Florida

Dear Lucy,
So, having made my train reservations to leave on Saturday, Donna and I went to run errands on Thursday. I was still bumbed that I hadn't seen an alligator yet even though she drove me down a street they call "Alligator Alley".
On the way home she made one final stop at a local park figuring that we would surely see an alligator there.
We walked along a sort of boardwalk over a marshy pond and hard as we looked, we only saw turtles swimming around in the murky water. We walked the entire length of the boardwalk and saw nothing.
Then, as we were walking back, an alligator just appeared and I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I hollered OOH! and nearly sent Donna jumping up a tree. She had been looking for all the other unfriendlies (snakes).
Seems the alligator had been under the water and just floated to the surface. He was really cool looking. We figured maybe about 5 feet long.
I tried to take his picture but no matter how loud I asked him to say cheese, he just wouldn't oblige. Actually, I got a couple of shots of him, but with my funky camera, the water being the same color as the alligator, and the sunshine, the pics didn't turn out.
He hung out a couple of minutes just floating there, and then submerged like a submarine. It was so weird. He didn't swim back under the water, he just sank.
This gave me a whole new respect for the creature; I had thought they swam on the surface and that one could spot them coming. But knowing now that they swim under water and just surface, well, I wouldn't go swimming in a Florida pond!

--Kathy