zoomed their way toward a meeting, face-to-face, with Florida’s famed alligators.
“This is definitely farm country,” Melissa told herself, surveying the acres of tomatoes and what she perceived to be an occasional field of green peppers.
She was charmed at the sight of the single-engine crop dusters that flew but a few feet over the roadway, spreading white, artificial clouds that covered the vegetables.
When she and Joe arrived at the visitors’ center, they saw that there were only a handful of other tourists in the park.
“This is a good luck stop for us,” Melissa told Joe. “I just saw a cat walking behind those bushes. Cats are always good luck.”
Melissa was especially glad to be able to step out of her air-conditioned car and into the warming sun again—with Joe at her side. She wished, however, that she could be wearing a comfortable pair of shorts and a tank top instead of the prim brown skirt and high-collared, matching blouse that she called her “take an airplane outfit.”
The park itself provided two main paths. The first was much like a boardwalk, the kind that made Atlantic City famous. This version stretched for about a half-mile, in a huge circle, through and just barely over the lush green swampland.
Melissa was bending over the railing when she took her first look at a live alligator. It was swimming, ever so stealthily, through what appeared to be shallow water.
At one point, a group of three other alligators, much smaller, congregated directly under the boardwalk. They were vocal, too, making the guttural sounds that dogs emit when they expect to be fed.
“I think they’re barking,” Melissa told Joe.
“They are.”
“If I close my eyes,” she joked, squinting, “it sounds like the Key West greyhound track.”
“You’d better walk quickly, my dear,” Joe counseled, “it must be feeding time.”
The second of the parkland walkways coursed through an overgrown tropical jungle. Soon after entering this pristine setting, Melissa and Joe beheld a sunken grove filled with wide-bodied divi-divi trees that lay sprawled before them, leafless and sporting outgrowths of gnarled wood that gave the appearance of a school of giant octopi brandishing their menacing tentacles.
Multicolored flowers were plentiful on both sides of the path, as were towering patches of bamboo.
“It looks like an immense floral arrangement, designed in heaven,” Melissa offered, “absolutely breathtaking.
“The way the long-stemmed flowers are bunched together, hanging over both sides of the path, makes it look spooky. I expect to see the eyes of a lion cub peering out at me.”
A brief, five-minute walk took them to the far reaches of the path. And except for the chirping of an occasional bird and the whispering of the warm air as it whistled through the scrub pines, they were alone.
Melissa and Joe, arm-in-arm now, were soaking up the solitude of the forest and luxuriating in the warm feelings generated by two people who truly care for each other.
“If I could go back in time and be twenty years old again,” Melissa revealed, “I’d attack you immediately, and we’d be lying in the grass under the shade of that tree.”
Without saying a word in response, Joe brought her closer to him and hugged her gently. Quite naturally, they stopped to kiss.
Rubbing noses together, like two enraptured high schoolers on a first date, they pecked at each other’s lips a number of times and then hugged, again, while swaying, ever so slightly, to the rhythm of the tropical breezes.
But before their minds, or their desires, could leap to any more erotic activity, they heard the sounds of oncoming footsteps. Muffled voices indicated the approach of children.
Within seconds, Melissa and Joe were smiling and saying hello to their fellow tourists, a family of four.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” the father of the group offered, as he held onto the tiny hand of his blonde and toddling daughter. “Makes you
“This is definitely farm country,” Melissa told herself, surveying the acres of tomatoes and what she perceived to be an occasional field of green peppers.
She was charmed at the sight of the single-engine crop dusters that flew but a few feet over the roadway, spreading white, artificial clouds that covered the vegetables.
When she and Joe arrived at the visitors’ center, they saw that there were only a handful of other tourists in the park.
“This is a good luck stop for us,” Melissa told Joe. “I just saw a cat walking behind those bushes. Cats are always good luck.”
Melissa was especially glad to be able to step out of her air-conditioned car and into the warming sun again—with Joe at her side. She wished, however, that she could be wearing a comfortable pair of shorts and a tank top instead of the prim brown skirt and high-collared, matching blouse that she called her “take an airplane outfit.”
The park itself provided two main paths. The first was much like a boardwalk, the kind that made Atlantic City famous. This version stretched for about a half-mile, in a huge circle, through and just barely over the lush green swampland.
Melissa was bending over the railing when she took her first look at a live alligator. It was swimming, ever so stealthily, through what appeared to be shallow water.
At one point, a group of three other alligators, much smaller, congregated directly under the boardwalk. They were vocal, too, making the guttural sounds that dogs emit when they expect to be fed.
“I think they’re barking,” Melissa told Joe.
“They are.”
“If I close my eyes,” she joked, squinting, “it sounds like the Key West greyhound track.”
“You’d better walk quickly, my dear,” Joe counseled, “it must be feeding time.”
The second of the parkland walkways coursed through an overgrown tropical jungle. Soon after entering this pristine setting, Melissa and Joe beheld a sunken grove filled with wide-bodied divi-divi trees that lay sprawled before them, leafless and sporting outgrowths of gnarled wood that gave the appearance of a school of giant octopi brandishing their menacing tentacles.
Multicolored flowers were plentiful on both sides of the path, as were towering patches of bamboo.
“It looks like an immense floral arrangement, designed in heaven,” Melissa offered, “absolutely breathtaking.
“The way the long-stemmed flowers are bunched together, hanging over both sides of the path, makes it look spooky. I expect to see the eyes of a lion cub peering out at me.”
A brief, five-minute walk took them to the far reaches of the path. And except for the chirping of an occasional bird and the whispering of the warm air as it whistled through the scrub pines, they were alone.
Melissa and Joe, arm-in-arm now, were soaking up the solitude of the forest and luxuriating in the warm feelings generated by two people who truly care for each other.
“If I could go back in time and be twenty years old again,” Melissa revealed, “I’d attack you immediately, and we’d be lying in the grass under the shade of that tree.”
Without saying a word in response, Joe brought her closer to him and hugged her gently. Quite naturally, they stopped to kiss.
Rubbing noses together, like two enraptured high schoolers on a first date, they pecked at each other’s lips a number of times and then hugged, again, while swaying, ever so slightly, to the rhythm of the tropical breezes.
But before their minds, or their desires, could leap to any more erotic activity, they heard the sounds of oncoming footsteps. Muffled voices indicated the approach of children.
Within seconds, Melissa and Joe were smiling and saying hello to their fellow tourists, a family of four.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” the father of the group offered, as he held onto the tiny hand of his blonde and toddling daughter. “Makes you
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