bitten by a crocodile

Not much, though I've learned through the years when back east where to be before sunset falls to avoid those nasty storms that can spurn tornadoes. One such storm I was in made national news one time though. We (hubby and I) were stuck an the truck stop outside St. Louis, Missouri, good thing we were, as an wall of water went through town that night, it was what made front page National news the next morning. I called my dad long distance that night from the truck stop telling him where we were at and that I didn't know if he'd ever see me again if the storm didn't let up, by then we were dodging lightening strikes in the parking lot. The ramp coming off the freeway into this truck stop had so much water coming down it, at the bottom of the ramp some guys pulled an couple out of 5 feet of water,..and from their car that was floating along.. it was like an river draining off in another direction. We just stayed "put" and the next morning woke up to going into St. Louis with everything under water for miles around us..just as far as you could see. If you have ever been in the town, you know it has signs to everywhere else north, south, east and west (major cities)and we were on the only major highway "open" that day because of the water...it was going east and west. I usually never worry about being back east, or then didn't.. because my uncle owns his own trucking company, he's always said...call us if you need help, and one of my guys, if not myself...will be there shortly to help.But then half the town got taken out where he lives an couple of years ago by an tornado also. Took out an old folks nursing home also. That made national news also back then. Went right up beside his house. They were saved, but my aunt was an bit in an stupor even then as they were surveying all the damage..I could barely hear her on the phone for all the Helicopters there...she was afraid then about if the water came up any closer to her house it would flood their home. I don't know if my uncle's business office was taken out that night or not. I know my other uncle was there with them. If it took out his barn, there went his million and half dollar tractor set-up....though I think someone told me later on that it was out in another field at the time. They put more stock into "family" back there then posessions, and this is one reason why, it can go in the snap of the fingers from an tornado at any time. They well know that. Something everyone is going to have to watch with the weather changes going on these days. Paricularly Florida and southern California here lately. from the sounds of things going on already. I have had an LOT of "tuckers" talk me through storms while we were going down the road and kind of sandwhich us between them  and protect us. This not meaning the new hispanic ones they are trying to get us to accept out there on the roads coming up from Mexico taking over the USA's truckers livelhoods from them. I'm glad my uncle is in retirement, if he's even still alive by now. He has four college graduate son's. Things change I guess. My son is the "trucker" now...he's struggling for enough hours right now. 

I've been back to Florida many times, there is an difference between crocodiles and alligators, one of them their jaws "lock" shut and they can only open them after tearing off the object they are hanging onto.

My hubby has his pesticide liscense, so he can fill you in on the insect and disease problems of the countryside. We are lucky here in Oregon to not have many of them, but as I said, with weather changes, they too are on the move at times. Never underestimate the little wee ones, e-coli is deadly as much as any spider or snake. We do have bears, "bigfoot", cougars, and "drug dealers" and weirdo's in general willing to kill you that one has to be careful of these days...but some of these are all over the countryside also...not just limited to here.

Wow, Michael, what an interesting life. A man after my own heart! :-)

I drove across country in a small car with one other person, two dogs and a pregnant cat. The cat escaped from the car when we stopped for gas along a major highway in Texas and ran half way across four lanes before we caught her. Fortunately it was after midnight and there was no traffic or she would have been a pancake.

I was nearly bitten by a red back spider in Australia.

I stood face to face with a buffalo in the wilds of North Dakota.

I got to go up and photograph parachute jumpers in Indiana as they jumped from the plane.

I met Mikhail Baryshnikov in Los Angeles (sigh).

In Oxford, England, I met a man who was the childhood friend of C.S. Lewis' step son, Douglas Gresham. ;-)