"…Don't let your little dog get too close to the edge of the pond," a friendly employee at the Brunswick Town-Fort Anderson State historic site told us as we were heading off to check out nearby Orton Gardens.
We had asked about alligators, as we hadn't spotted a single one on our drive along country roads leading to the fort. Orton Gardens is home to the ruins of St. Philip's Anglican, North Carolina's oldest church.
"There are all kinds of them. Believe it or not, people feed them. Of course, it's the wrong thing to do. If you get out of your vehicle, stand on the banks around the pond and clap your hands; they'll come running right out," the Fort employee explained.
The first clap of thunder in a spring rainstorm coincided with the moment of our arrival. An older gentleman had showed us the way into the museum, where we read the history of North Carolina's battles with the Spanish, and saw pictures of the area's antebellum heroes.
We were the only visitors inside the museum, and staffers warned us not to get caught in the rain should we decide on a walking tour. The road to Orton Gardens is a lonely one, made all the more moody by the number of ancient gnarled trees.
We didn't want to see Orton for the flowers, but mostly because it boasts a former rice plantation on Cape Fear River's west bank. The original rooms of the plantation house were built in 1725, but are not open for public tours.
The original back gate with its ornate eagles is far more interesting than the refurbished front gate. The scope of the plantation's size can be understood when one realizes the gardens take up some 20 acres.
Even when the rain stopped, the road leading to Orton had a somewhat desolate feel. Remote because of no other traffic, you began to feel as though you were in another world. On the way to the pond, we spotted a black alligator within spitting distance. When we stopped, the alligator eyed us with a kind of lazy-eyed look.
Peering outside the open car window, Kiko caught his drift long before he ever saw him. Thousands of years of dog instinct told the 12-lb. Yorkie that this was no pussycat.
There were no signs warning, "Watch out for the Alligators" let alone any instructing folk not to feed them.
Canada Free Press manager Brian Thompson remarked about the gator's boot-polish black colour. Me, I started to wonder if naïve tourists ever came sauntering along the roadside.
The rain had made mud out of the roadside, and now that I knew about the gator population, the idea of getting stuck in it didn't much appeal to me.
We already had experienced the feel of the place, enjoyed the artifacts in the museum, and mused over pictures of one hundred and forty-year year-old Civil War heroes. The pictures were of subjects so ordinary in countenance; they could be the same young men munching on caramel popcorn in a local shopping mall.
It was time to get back to Wilmington and prepare for the last leg of our trip in Charleston, South Carolina and maybe the State of Georgia.
Kiko, sniffing the air to smell out other exotic creatures had enough of alligators after spotting his first one.
On the way back to Wilmington only a half hour away, I appreciated fully for the first time the old expression, "See ya' later, Alligator."