Green Bombers, Evil Cousins, and Gators, Oh My!

Full disclosure about where we are staying this week:  Sun City at Hilton Head is a mega (population 12,000) over-55 community.  Appears to be all-white other than the guards at the gates and the guys driving huge lawn mowers.  We were joking this morning that the gates and barriers were actually designed by the local Southerners, to contain the risk of culture contamination by all these retiree transplants.

Popular mode of transportation inside Sun City is by electric golf cart.  Our hosts offered us the use of theirs but we were dubious and declined.  They did not offer us the use of the old twin green Schwinns parked in the garage, but this morning I convinced Ben we should take them out for a spin.  This involved Ben having to dig up a bike pump for the flattened tires, and then a search for socket wrenches to tighten the atrophied brake pads (after that, you could at least slow without dragging your feet).  The pie pan sized seats then had to be raised.

And we were off!

Our destination was the .8 mile nature board walk which developer Del Webb built through the small remains of a dense lowlands hardwood forest, which otherwise has been bullied into vast hillocks of lawn and tamed shrubs.  We were on the hunt for wildlife and were quickly rewarded by glimpses of a shy spotted fawn.

Ben gave me a little horticultural lesson on one of my lifetime nemesis - poison oak.  It's evil cousin, poison ivy, was lurking below the board walk.

As we got deeper in the woods and near some swamp, we spied twin baby gators, about 2 feet long.

Other critters were about, including this tiny green lizard.  A giant black spider was spinning his web and this led Ben to admit that at our last house, he had chased an even larger spider under a chair.  He had decided not to mention this to me back then.

Full disclosure about the rest of our activities today - Nada.

This afternoon I watched 3 episodes of Scandal on Netflix and Ben scrolled through Facebook, catching up.  Excuses?  It was hot.  We are becoming burned out travelers.  Sun City has turned us flacid.

We did take a long bike ride (if you can call miles of coasting on Schwinns a bike ride) this evening.  We stopped in our tracks after spying a 3 foot gator on the edge of one of the "ponds".  Ben decided to sneak up on him to take a picture.  Just as he got within a few yards, the gator suddenly splashed and disappeared.  Scared the be-jesus out of Ben.

We rode on and had to keep an eye out for golf carts careening around corners.  Ben wanted me to snap this picture of him to send to his Idaho Bike Ride pals.

We may be losing our travel edge!  Just a few days left.  We will see what tomorrow brings...