Was that an Alligator?

So, Tom has this weekend off and we spent today running around to Home Depot and Lowe's and Costco. Now, all three of these stores are much closer to our current house then they were in Portland. If you don't count the 3 minutes it takes just to get out of our development, it's about 2-3 minutes to Home Depot and Lowe's (they are directly across the street from one another and about 5-6 minutes to Costco. The whole reason I describe how close the stores are to us is to illustrate how close the Alligator was to our house.

Yes. Tom and I saw our very first wild South Carolina Alligator on the way home from Costco. (I had Tom take a picture with my cell phone, I'll have to see if we can get it onto the computer.) I was driving and we were passing a pond just a little ways away from Lowe's, and I just had the vague sense of seeing an Alligator shape on the bank of the pond. I told Tom and we decided to turn around and check. Sure enough! It was about 4-6 feet long and it was sunning itself on the bank.

Of course the joke on the way home was me telling Tom that I hadn't seen the 3 local Ducks that hang out in a pond in our development. Tom just turned to me and licked his lips.