With its antediluvian palmettos, teeming sloughs and oxbow lakes, and mighty live oaks, a trip to Brazos Bend can feel like time-travel to the Cretaceous Period. That goes double, or triple, when you encounter one of the park's dozens upon dozens of wild alligators. It's surreal enough when you see them on one of the more well-traveled trails, like Elm Lake or 40 Acre Lake, but it gets downright primal when you come across a big old 12-footer sunning herself in a more isolated area, like, say, a few steps off the trail, near the mouth of Big Creek. Even if the wild gators don't do much other than sit there most of the time, there's a world of difference between seeing them in the zoo and in such wild surroundings with no bars between the giant reptiles and you.