You can eat them. You can rassle them. You can challenge them to a stare down, but you'll lose.
Alligators are a prominent presence in Florida's Everglades.
After seeing my first few hundred, they didn't get any easier to look at. But like 'em or not, gators are as much a part of a south Florida vacation as humidity-humbled hair and sunsets into the sea. Though the look of the Everglades varies by region, from sawgrass prairies to mangrove swamps to subtropical jungles, airboats and alligators are a constant part of the adventure. The first gator to greet me was a territorial five-footer floating next to my airboat at Sawgrass Recreation Park, just west of Fort Lauderdale. The little guy wasn't people-shy or enthusiastic about sharing the space in his sawgrass swamp.