On one of our various trips down south we decided to visit most of the battlefields, plantation homes, and other historic places. One of the places we stopped at was Cypress Gardens in South Carolina. It not only have beautiful gardens, an alligator, but a scene from The Patriot with Mel Gibson was filmed there.
This story has more to do with the alligators. My grandma, aunt, me, and some others got in the little boat to take the water tour. The boat sat very close to the water, and one of the things the guides wanted us to know was that some of the alligators in the water and on land were real and some were fake, it was up to us to decide which were which. Well, my grandmother did not believe that they would allow live alligators anywhere near people, so she got it stuck in her head that they were all fake. We said okay sure.
After the boat ride, we decided to take the walking tour around the little lake, this is where you get to see some of their famous plants and flowers. Well, laying along the trail were.....alligators. As you might expect gradma continued to insist that they were fake. This idea was further helped by the fact that we had just witnessed a couple up ahead of us step over one that was laying across the entire length of the trail.
We all disagreed with her and said no mama, some of those are real. So she said what we thought she'd say "I'll prove it." We said, "how are you going to do that?" Before we could stop her, she walked over to the nearest alligator sitting by the water and KICKED it square in the tail.
Much to her surprise, it took off into the water, nearly giving her and us a heart attack. We were all thankful that it didn't turn around and decide to bite her leg off. After the initial shock of what happened, we of course, found the incident humours, mama did not. We then looked ahead at the next alligator in the path (that the couple stepped over) and asked if she would like to see if that one was real or not. She gave us and incredulous look and declined.
Needless to say we did not continue on the path and instead decided to turn in the opposite direction. We stuck to the "culb house." We will never forget that day, mama hates in when we bring it up but she is beginning to admit that it was rather funny (especially now).
