Next up on the great Saint Augustine excursion of 2013 was the Alligator Farm. Its easy to find. The whole area is kind of small and if you drive around for 45 minutes you end up knowing where everything is. Like the fort though, the real reason I wanted to visit the Alligator Farm was nostalgia. We visited this park when I was young and the only thing I remember was my dad spitting some Skoal on the bad alligators.

The military discount saved me like two dollars on admission at the Alligator Farm which was quite disappointing. Fortunately, that disappointment was quickly turned around by the first attraction in the farm.. An albino alligator! I feel sorry for these poor guys, they are like at the bottom of Darwinism. If the a predator doesn’t kill them first, they will suffer from sunburn. Good thing these guys are protected in the farm!

All this guy is thinking is ‘Feed me a chicken!’

After picking up your jaw from the floor near the albino gator, you come to the center of the farm where probably 50 gators are just chilling. One thing is on these gators’ mind, ‘Is it feeding time yet?’

Badass Gator Tap!

Next to the feeding frenzy was a bar in the center of the farm selling cheap 32 oz beers. Ugh… Yes please.

So after fueling up it was time to see the park.

A message I need to keep on my pants to fend off all the VD ridden skanks

But it just happened to be feeding time immediately following the drink purchases. Sure why not?

I probably took a hundred photos trying to best capture the excitement of feeding time in the Alligator Farm but none of my picture quite conveyed the emotions. Watching these prehistoric beasts fight for effortless food is definitely worth the price of military discounted admission. I highly recommend it.

There are a few paths you can head down to see the farm. What is most awesome is the zip line course that traverses right above the exhibits in the farm. This is something I would have been all for had I not capitalized on two of the cheaply priced 32 oz beers the park offered.

You will be happy to know that even the dumb cousin of the alligator, the gharial is also an exhibit. Apparently these guys are some sort of endangered species or something. I can’t imagine why. Not even a toddler would be afraid of this thing.

For those bringing young ones you will be pleased to learn that there is a children’s playground. It isn’t much but it will probably keep them entertained long enough to regrip your bearings on life.

The paths you choose eventually lead you back to the center of the farm where coincidentally the refreshment station is located. There is a stage where some stupid show about the history of gators or some shit is going on. I suppose families would enjoy this but I am more of the exploring type.

After refilling we decided to head down one of the other paths. This path was a bridged walkway of swamp-like territory that gators were swimming freely in. Awesome.

I actually spent the most time in the park on this walkway. I don’t know what it was but it felt quite refreshing to watch the gators swim freely without concern. I thought about how the management of the farm decided where what gators went where when standing on this walkway. It seemed like this was the most open environment but the gators in this exhibit were smaller than some of the others. Something had to give but I will probably never know.

At the end of the walkway you approach an air conditioned room with video and aquariums filled with lizards, snakes and whatnot. Not exactly why I came to this park.

The best part of the room though was the painting that portrayed a prehistoric alligator taking down the monstrosity known as the tyrannosaurus rex.

Overall, I think I can confidently say that visiting the Alligator Farm was the best part of my return visit to Saint Augustine. I found none of the nostalgia I came looking for but instead I found a place where I was caught up in the moment and couldn’t help but to admire the beautiful creatures of earth that were on exhibit. Better yet, I was able to get one of the most badass Hawaiian t-shirts ever. Except nothing about it was Hawaiian. If I had to describe it I was describe it as a Florida T-shirt. Flamingo’s and Gators.

While were on the topic of this gift store of this trip, I must mention I bought one of the best gifts ever. A coffee mug in the shape of an alligator with a gator hatching out of it. This was a great gift for the gf because she was on a ship in the Coast Guard named the Alligator. Cant beat that!