Boggy, Buggy...and quite fun

While speeding across Boggy Creek and giggling as you chase birds, you might learn a few things about your maturity level. Though we spent more time bird-chasing than crock-hunting, it proved to be a productive 45 minutes. So now I share with you three official signs of my maturity:

1. I snuck away from my sister's softball warm ups to go on an air boat ride with Dad. Then my dad and I discussed not telling her so that she wouldn't be jealous.
2. My dad and I r-a-n up to the lady holding the baby crocodile to ask if we could hold it. Somehow we lost her in our excitement.
3. I held in lots of girl screams as we rode through black clouds of freshly hatched gnats. I crushed these 1-inch suckers on my legs, arms, and yes even my face as we sped over the water. Hundreds of them.

Official Boggy Creek Air Boat picture of Dad and I on our private ship. Love this Little-Mermaid-like cove. Believe it or not, this spot had the fewest bugs of all.

Entrance to the lagoon from the photo above.

Look close and you'll see a pink sack of snail eggs on the tree root. Our tour guide said this is one of the successful integrations into the area. These snails were once endangered and now Boggy Creek has the largest population of these suckers. As the snails start to hatch, they turn white and fall into the water for the fish to eat. Birds have even learned to eat the eggs of the tree roots. Interesting, huh?

My favorite part of the ride: bird-chasing. Don't judge me. We weren't cruel in any way to these birds. Think of it more as a game. We would come behind the birds and they would sprint as if they just heard the horn go off for the 50 meter dash. They would never fly, only flap their wings to gain speed as they ran just out of the boat's reach.

Coolest alligator from the trip. This guy was about 8 feet long, pridefully swimming right out in the open. We saw another pretty big one, but he was hiding in the weeds. Then we saw a few that were a couple feet long. Did you know that an alligator grows about 12 inches a year? So if he's about 3 feet long, you can guesstimate that he's three years old.