Answer: Anywhere it wants to.

I got a call from my boss's boss: There's an alligator in the middle of a golf club driveway. Go over and see what you can do about it.
I went over with a coworker and sure 'nough, there was a 5, 5 and a half or so foot long alligator sitting in the middle of the golf club driveway. Only half the size of a big male, and not big enough to kill me unless I was very unlucky, but hefty enough to, say, bite off my arm.

Given the size of the alligator in ratio to my lack of training - I've only rescued gators 3 feet and under, never something this big - we decided to use the van as a hide. As my coworker Kyle maneuvered the van, I tried to herd it using a big metal pole. Or rather, I poked it with increasingly forceful pokes until I could feel the metal reverberating with the force of hitting the alligator's skull. No worries about animal cruelty, though, alligators are tough. Here's the view from inside the van.

The alligator took it in stride - or rather, lack of stride, since it wasn't thrilled about moving. I did manage to push it from the road to a little traffic island, but when I tried to poke it from the island and across the other road to the pond, it bit the van and scooted underneath it.
After a while we gave up poking and I noosed it around the upper jaw. Unfortunately, given the alligator's continual lethargy up to that point, I wasn't quite prepared for the immediate fight the alligator decided to put up. As I clung on for dear life to the pole, the steel rope snapped at the weaker attachment point and broke free - luckily the alligator wasn't stuck with a big metal loop around its jaws.
We gave up completely at that point.
I heard later that the alligator had remained in the same spot for more than 12 hours, and they had to continually post a security guard there as tourists kept on trying to take close-up pictures of the gator. Some brave/idiotic guy eventually dragged it off by the tail. We'll call him brave because the alligator was probably sick and didn't try to attack him; if the alligator had attacked him, we would call him foolish. Thus is fate. Anyway, there have been a series of alligator deaths on that part of the island lately and poison is suspected; cause is still a mystery - perhaps there's a serious gator hater going around poisoning alligators, or perhaps the gators are ingesting lead from fishing lines and cast nets. Anyway, from my position in the van I got a very close view of the inside of its mouth when it hissed at me, and I can vouch that it looked dehydrated, for an alligator.
Anyway, it was a pretty sad experience overall because I hate messing with wildlife. Well, there was some base, vile part of me that got a thrill from poking an alligator with a pole. But I didn't like having to do it, because it was so undignified for the alligator. Here's a creature that is the perfectly evolved water predator - like the shark, alligators haven't changed their body plan in hundreds of millions of years. And here come us impertinent humans who enjoy building golf courses and shooting all the alligators over 3 feet. Supposedly because large alligators are a threat, but frankly Hummer drivers pose a much more deadly threat to my little life than an alligator does and I don't see anyone outlawing Hummers.
But I think it's jealousy and possessiveness - we humans like being the ones on top, and we can't stand to see an animal that we must respect and give a wide berth to. We like the power to allow an animal to live or die at our whim, and we don't like being in the opposite position. Admittedly the island that I work on has a progressive policy towards alligators and, unlike most developments, does not kill alligators simply because they are big. They will kill them if they show aggressive behavior towards humans, which is always a direct result of being fed by people who want to watch a very boring stationary predator move around and eat stuff.
As much as I want humans and wildlife to get along together, I get so frustrated with the lack of both respect for and common sense about wildlife. The more I see the more I lose hope with our ability to live on this planet without tearing it apart, and ourselves in the process. What a dour but predictable stance.
On a lighter note, there's a possum in my shower right now. She's eating radishes. I just baked a buckwheat bread from scratch and despite being too earthy and whole grain to rise very much, it's got a great flavor.