First things first: what’s an airboat?
You know those boats with giant fans on the back that you see featured in good guy/bad guy chases through the Everglades and swamps in crime shows based in Florida?
You know that boat with a big fan on the back that Mama, Kathy Bates’ character in The Waterboy, drives?
That’s an airboat.
They’re used to navigate the shallow waters of the lakes, rivers and swamps in Florida and they are pretty much the only way to get up close and personal with the wildlife in those areas.
Yes, that means gators.
In the spirit of doing tourist things we’d never done in the Kissimmee area before, I booked a tour for Jared and I with Wild Willy’s Airboat Tours in St. Cloud, just south of Kissimmee. We got up bright and early (again), because Mrs. Willy suggested that we were most likely to see alligators earlier in the day before the weather heated up. A short drive out to the middle of nowhere later, we found ourselves parked in front of a shed in an RV park. A sign on the building and an airboat parked out front assured us we were in the right spot.
And then we met Wild Willy. Wild Willy is like your grandpa (or uncle, I guess, depending on your age) who loves to fish and hunt and be outside and knows just dang near everything there is to know about everything. You can’t tell if he’s making some things up or reads a lot of has just been doing stuff for so long that he just knows more than most people. In other words, he’s the perfect person to take you on an airboat tour.
Jared and crawled on to a boat that would have seated about 6 people, and Wild Willy crawled up into the pilot’s seat above and behind us. After a quick history of the area, we were told to put on our earmuffs to help drown out some of the noise from the giant fan that would propel us across the surface of Lake Tohopekaliga.
I was unprepared for how beautiful the scenery would be. You see, I am not what you would call a “nature girl”. I don’t like bugs or getting dirty. I like the kind of nature that comes with an umbrella in your drink and a two-piece swimsuit. I have found myself, on more than one occasion, surrounded by trees and water and plants and animals, bitterly reapplying bug spray while everyone around me marvels at the beauty of nature. I don’t do nature.
But man, this was pretty. And the ride was smooth and the breeze whipped through your hair and on your face and the birds you see on TV took flight around us as we buzzed by. And maybe this nature thing isn’t so bad.
And then they showed us the gators.
“Look, do you see it? See that? See?” Wild Willy and my husband eagerly pointed out the scaly eyes that poked above the water right beside our boat, which was now stopped so we could get a closer look. ”I.. uh… oh… sure.. uh…” I wasn’t actually trying too hard to see, because I was a little afriad I’d have a stinking heart attack right there on that boat.
Except then I did see – and it didn’t try to eat me. And that was cool and made me feel oddly connected to this place that refuses to be cultivated. Of course, I almost did have a heart attack when we frightened a mother alligator later on the trip, causing her to make a big splash in her eagerness to run away from us. My brain knew she was afraid of me, but my chest was concentrating on the big splash inches from the boat.
So, yeah, we saw alligators. We also saw a ton of birds and plants and cows (yes, cows. Grazing along the edge of this lake, which was very unusual for a boy and a girl from Iowa.) We stopped in a bonnet field, which was like something out of the Wizard of Oz. For as far as I could see, we were surrounded by green plants with brilliant yellow flowers – in the water. I learned about how mother alligators protect their nests and how baby alligators rarely live beyond their first year because the majority never learn to feed properly. I learned about the grass that filters out pesticide run-off and the pink stinky goo covering everything that contains egg sacs from a snail that isn’t even supposed to be here.
The two lasted a little less than two hours, and I took more pictures in that time than I did during the rest of our weekend in Kissimmee combined. I can’t wait to take my dad and step mom out the next time they visit. This is a great thing to do for people who visit the Kissimmee area but get hives at the idea of spending the day in a crowd of people at a theme park.
You know, people who do nature.
Blogger Malise Terrell will visit Kissimmee next week! Want to share your Kissimmee story? 
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Um… to be honest , i am blown away by the article . Being a web programmer , now i plan to make a online game on this!