Vacation Day 6, 7, 8 - Notified that Grandma Died, 9

On Vacation day 6 we checked out of the Holiday Inn and checked into the Henderson Park Inn.  We went to the beach in between checking out and checking in.  The Henderson Park Inn was beautiful.  

We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast on Day 7.  THEN I hit my wall.  I was done being on vacation.  I was ready to go home.  I was weepy and irritable.   This place is beautiful, but I wanted to be with my kids.

We left in the afternoon after going to the beach one more time.  We drove through Alabama and Mississippi (state 11) to Houma, Louisiana (state 12) and spent the night.  We are fans of the TV show "Swamp People".  We wanted to see the alligators up close and personal. 

After we ate breakfast (Friday, Day 8), I was curling my hair when my Mom called me to let me know that my Grandma had passed away the night before.  My sister was taking care of the kids and I wasn't able to get a hold of her for a little bit.  I thought she might want to drive up to see my family, but she was unable to because of the amount of days she could take off work.  Shawn was willing to let me fly back if I needed to pick up the kids early.  Since it was Memorial Day weekend, the funeral wasn't going to be for several days, so I decided I wouldn't fly out.  We decided to enjoy our day in Louisiana.

We toured the Greenwood Gator Farm in Gibson, La.  We had SO much fun.  We toured with Tim.  It was better than going to the zoo for me. 



Shawn with baby alligator and Tim "owner" and our tour guide.



Turtles on the farm



WOW!  Me holding a gator.

 This was so much fun.  You really need to go experience it for yourself.

Then we wanted to visit the alligators in the wild, so we went to a nature reserve.  Google maps led us on a tangent, but we were so glad it did because this is what Shawn was able to take a picture of:

1st alligator we saw on nature reserve

2nd alligator we saw on nature reserve



Animals you might see on the trail.  I was afraid of the bear, snake, and alligator in that order.





Nature Trail



 We saw several baby alligators on the trail.  Shawn said, "The Mama has to be around here somewhere because Tim said that where the babies are, the Mom is nearby."
We didn't see her walking toward the end, but we saw this when we turned around and were walking back.  You can see the alligator toward the middle-right hand side of the picture, poking her eye's out of the water.  As you can see, there isn't much of a rail on the boardwalk. 



This picture shows you the size of her head. 


 She hissed at us after we'd walked by her.  Shawn took several pictures of her. 

We stayed in Texarkana, Texas (state 13) on Day 8 night.  Then on Day 9 we drove from Texarkana through Arkansas (state 14) and then through Missouri and into Kansas (state 15).

I was so happy to see my kids.

This is what we did the day we got home: