I took this photo back in 2013 on the Swift River near Belchertown, Massachusetts. Originally from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the sign obviously took a prankster’s ride to the alligator-unfriendly climes of the Northeast, where it was planted as a joke, and remains to this day a useless yet charming and chuckle-provoking feature of a very pleasant river.

Useless until 2015 that is! I paddled down this river just last week (on the only day in the past ten where the temperature actually approached 70, by the way), and look what I found, lurking on someone’s riverside patio.

The sight of this alligator didn’t alarm me in the least, however. I had fortunately seen the warning sign.

Below is the complete riverside patio, and a photo of the sign as it appears in 2015.  It appears to be weathering the Northeast well.