Unsurprisingly, even in a tourist town like St. Augustine, there's not a whole lot to do on Thanksgiving Day. Knowing this, we held off on going to the Alligator Farm until that day, because we knew it would be one of the few things open. On Monday, when we were walking back to our car rather than taking the deadly Trolley From Hell, we stopped in a new-agey store with a very friendly proprietor who had told us that the Alligator Farm sounded like it would be one of those ticky-tacky tourist trap things, but was really not, and was definitely worth visiting. After going there, we would have to agree. It's a serious zoological park, not a roadside attraction for the gullible.
The first sign of their seriousness is that "Alligator Farm" is a registered trademark.
The second sign is that the first thing you see upon entering is a toucan, not an alligator.
And then you see a rather perturbed looking monkey.
The gators aren't far away, though.
Alligators are pretty sedate most of the time. They hardly move, unless there's some guy in a faux safari uniform hanging out in their pit and poking them with a stick. Even then, they don't move much.
This special guy gets his own pit.
