We spent most of our time at the poolside but we did venture out to a neighbouring city for a change of scene. The city we chose was St Cloud which is largely residential with a bustling main street and a lakeshore boulevard which is nice to walk around.
On our lakeshore walk we came across a small alligator (2 foot long) swimming along a drainage ditch. We paused to watch while a local girl out walking her dog spoke to us and asked if we'd like to see a bigger one. Yes please we said and she pointed out the location of a "huge alligator, at least 6 foot long, sunning itself on the bank, and it won't be frightened of you".
Being a fearless soul I thrust my wife in the general direction of the "huge" alligator and followed her at a short distance. After walking for nearly 15 minutes finding nothing much we retraced our steps and spotted another 'small' alligator at the waters edge. It was about 4 foot long and obviously cautious in its own right as it swam off. I wonder if that was the 'huge' alligator of the dog walker fame?
I know that some people are prone to exageration but if I was told that the local snails were also "huge" I would have to believe them. We found an empty shell.
We stopped off in a small park just off the bustling main street as it appeared to have some military connected memorials.
There is more information at this link:
http://www.scv.org/
Scattered around the park were a number of memorials, a truck, a helicopter and a couple of guns.
This truck, known as the Deuce and a Half came into service in 1951 and as far as I can tell is still in service although this particular model won't be going far.
The chopper is a Bell AH-1 Cobra of Vietnam fame.
I was quite pleased with myself as I declared to my wife that these guns looked awfully like British 6 pounders and I was surprised to see an acknowledgment beside them that their development was indeed from a British design.
We are away up North to Chicago tomorrow so we may be out of touch blogwise for a few days.
