Don’t Antagonize the Alligators

From Austin, we drove east towards Houston, we planned to visit the Johnson Space Center (of the ‘Houston, we have a problem' fame) but diverted slightly south to spend the night at a state park campground after we hit the early stages of Houston rush hour and realized we would never make the Space Center in time to enjoy it… So we ended up with the nice surprise of the Brazos Bend Park, set amidst wetlands (aka swamp!) and full of alligators!! We arrived with a few hours of daylight to spare so thought we’d go for a run around the lake/swamp area, maybe see an alligator bobbing in the water as we ran by. The landscape was exactly how you’d picture a swamp, with trees dripping with Spanish moss, the black water covered in algae. We ran and looked and looked for an alligator for about 15 minutes – finally we saw one, about 5 feet beside us on the trail, completely out of the water and about 10 feet long. We were so busy looking in the water that we didn’t even notice it until we were literally right beside! We kept running…





The next day we headed to the Johnson Space Centre, spending a full day exploring and learning all you ever wanted to know about what it’s like to live in space and what’s happening with space exploration these days.