road trip - gator farm

We've passed by Colorado Gators every time we've driven to Sally's Cabin, South of Alamosa. But we've never stopped. Until now. On this trip the ride down was not so hot. Nat slept at the wrong time, and woke up way to early. So by the time we wanted to stop for lunch we were nowhere near anything. Except Colorado Gators.

So we stopped. We'd always figured it was just a building with a few alligators in it. But actually it's a tillapia farm that acquired a few alligators to get rid of it's excess fish. Then the gators multiplied, and they rescued more from bad homes. Now they have nearly 400 of them. There are a bunch of ponds fed by hot springs water at about 85 deg F so the gators can survive the cold winters no problem. And they still take care of the extra fish.

Here we are posing for a shot with Roswell. A female.
And I held a baby.
Here's one of the ponds.
And a big guy resting in another pond.

But they don't just have alligators. They also have tons of other snakes and reptiles you can check out. And we pet a couple of giant tortoises that were roaming around. There were also a pair of ostriches.
And a few emus.
But if you do make it there, you can't miss the great playground.
Hottest slide in town, but the playground locals were using it for its narrow band of shade.
And this was the most crooked swing I've ever seen. Natalie appreciated its novelty for about fifteen seconds, and then we were ready to hop back in the car for the last hour of our trip.
It was a stop I'm sure we will be making again on future trips to the cabin!