G is for Golf

Or mini golf in this case : )  I went to Congo River Golf on Friday and had an awesome time. It's a winding 18 hole course that takes you through the adventures of the famous African Congo explorers Henry Stanley and Dr. David Livingstone.  We went to the one on International Drive and found ourselves, of course, surrounded by tourists.  Apparently there is no such thing as mini gold in England if I were to guess by the huge number of British families we encountered. It was an interesting course in that it seems to consist of 3 or 4 levels...all I know is there were quite a few stairs and I stared in awe and baited breath as I watched one family maneuver a baby stroller through the levels.

After our riveting 18 holes, of which I did a laughable job of 19 over par, we went to visit the turtles.  Yep, turtles.  They have a rather large pond filled with about 15 turtles that swim around and eat the 25cent turtle food that you can throw at them.  Most of them were sleeping when we saw them, then again we were there at like 10pm and I don't think too many turtles are night owls.

So with a good-bye to the sleeping  turtles we moved on to the gators. Yep, they have gators too.  For a small price you can take a photo of yourself holding one (bring your own camera) or feed them bits of hot dog from a special sort of fishing rod.  It was kind of exciting to watch them feed.  They're rather small, the biggest was no more than my arms length snout to tail, but still pretty strong.  Some would clamp down on that special hook they use to hold the hot dog and refuse to let go.  The people would tug on the poles trying to free the hook, and the gator would go into a death roll  to try and make it stop.  They would eventually let go to the delight of the person holding the pole.

Being a Floridian and being around gators enough to know that even at that size they're not something I'd want to go up against, it was rather funny to hear how these tourist talked about them.  Mostly they called them dumb little animals too stupid to let go of a hook, and why would anyone in their right minds be afraid of these things? I mean really, they don't even have teeth!   Really...No teeth?  I would love to hear you say that when one of them is clamping down on you.  Just because you didn't see 4 inch teeth doesn't mean they're toothless.  And that whole death roll thing?  Yeah, kinda an instinct thing to kill the prey, which in this case was the pole you kept jerking around.

 So, mini golf...  It was really fun and if you've never been, or haven't been in a while, I really suggest you go.  Since this place was open rather late, go make a night of it, it's a lot more fun to play when you don't have the Florida sun beating down on you.