"For the Love of Lizards"

My daughter is in love with lizards, the ones you find in the south.  I believe they are called green anoles.  Every time we've gone on a trip recently, she's never failed to find one, actually several.  She even found some at the amusement park in southern Indiana, much to my surprise.  She found one at Holiday World in Santa Clause, Indiana this past July.  Ironically, I was born and raised in southern Indiana in Evansville and never once saw a lizard.  I suppose I would have had to have been looking for them.  She definitely has the eye for them.

The first time Amber had discovered lizards, while on a trip to New Orleans to see my mom, was a real adventure.  Amber had borrowed an old Cool Whip container, which we put some holes in so it could breathe.  She used this to capture them.  Little did we know that Amber had decided that these critters would be our new pets.  So, on the way back home to Fort Wayne, one got loose in the car, and we let it out at a rest stop in Kentucky.  We thought that was the end of it, but when we got back home to cold Northern Indiana, another got loose in the car.  I have no idea what happened to it, other than it disappeared in a hole in the floor board under the gas pedal.  Certainly, a twenty-degree temperature difference can't be very comfortable for a cold-blooded amphibian.  I doubt it lived through all of that, unfortunately.

The next time Amber had encountered some lizards was on a trip to St. Augustine, Florida.  Not only that, though, she had gotten to see her first armadillo, which was captured in my aunt and uncle's yard.  Apparently, in Florida, these animals can be somewhat destructive, so traps are set up, where the animals can be captured and released again at a state park.

Florida was such a complete paradise for Amber.  We went to the Alligator farm, where she sees such beauty in all of the reptiles.  Not only that, but it was her first trip ever to the beach.  She spent hours upon hours digging in the sand and finding these amazing, underwater shell creatures, which I had never seen before.  She had them in a plastic bottle, and they looked like something from some kind of an alien movie to me, but truly fascinating.  I'm not sure if my picture did the creatures justice. :-(

The most recent trip I went on with Amber was to New Orleans this past October to see my mom.  She found lizards at my uncle's and, of course, my mom's house.  She was so happy that she did not want to leave and was very unhappy that me and grandma wanted to leave to go to a festival.  She insisted we leave her at home, which wasn't going to happen.  In fact, while we were at the festival with all of the music and festivities, she was hanging around the trees, trying to find more creatures.

There was an incident at my mom's too with the lizards.  Amber had another plastic container, which she was keeping them in, and I was starting to pack our things to go home.  I asked her to bring me her stuff, and she insisted that she wanted to pack herself, which I thought very odd.  I even mentioned something aloud to my mom.  It's just not like Amber to take initiative to want to pack.  Ordinarily, she'd want nothing to do with it.  In fact, she was so adamant about packing herself that she was getting angry that I was anywhere near the luggage.  My mom figured something was up too and asked me if I should go check on the lizards in the garage.  I told her that that would not be a bad idea.  Sure enough, they weren't there, and Amber was trying to smuggle lizards back to northern Indiana again, but this time in a suit case to board an airplane.  Luckily, we found them safe and snug in the plastic container.  I'm not sure how airport security would handle us harboring lizards in our suitcase, especially with the heightened security these days.  Possibly, it could have been explained and maybe just laughed off like the chipmunk incident at her school, but who knows?