via Instagram http://ift.tt/1h1FBR1 April 26, 2014 at 05:49PM
Saturday road trip down to Savannah
posted in: Smartphone, Travel
0
Sunny Sunday Morning Boat Ride
After seeing the Okefenokee swamp on a dreary, rainy day, going back on Sunday in the bright sunshine was actually quite different. Oh there’s still the same wildlife, but everything just seems a little less foreboding, and having other folks out canoeing and enjoying the refuge area changes the atmosphere tremendously.
We chose to take the 90 minute guided tour as opposed to rowing ourselves around, from Okefenokee Adventures. They have all kinds of ways for you to explore the swamp, from renting canoes or kayaks to multiple day tours on the swamp! Our guide’s family had lived in the area for 7 generations and he knew all about the wildlife and the plant life, which would take an entire lifetime to become aware of, honestly, there are so many different species of animal and plants in the swamp!
Naturally, we came across a few gators during the trip.
What I love about that photo is that you can see just how black the water is. Look at the gators body, at the point where it goes from being out of the water, to under the water. You can’t see a thing! This is why they say for every gator or snake you see, there are 10 you don’t. You cannot see anything that is under the water here.
Of course, the hawks are really just as impressive when you get to really watch them do their thing out here too.
All in all, the tour was fun, educational and a great way to wrap up our time in Okefenokee before heading home!
Laura Walker State Park Georgia
Aside from a run-in with a snake, this state park, which is located very close to Waycross, GA, and basically across the street from the northern entrance to the Okefenokee Swamp (which is NOT the wildlife refuge, but the commercial part of the park, which has it’s own attractions, albeit of a different nature), was a lovely way to wrap up our Saturday.
After a rainy morning and some train watching, the sun actually came out as we headed back to Waycross, so we decided to make one more stop and a short hike in Laura Walker State Park.
First we hit the nature trail, which started out in among the long pines.
It then continued along some swampy areas, and Mirror Pond.
I’m guessing you can tell where the name Mirror Pond came from, no? 😉
After that hike, and the long day we had already had, not to mention the bug bites, (Oh good lord the bug bites! Even with bug repellant on I got chewed up pretty good in the swamp.), it was nice to just stop and watch the late afternoon sun over the lake.
The sunny late afternoon was a nice change from the rain earlier in the day and a precursor to what we were going to get on our return to Okefenokee for our boat ride. More on that in a future post!
Train Watching in Folkston Georgia
After slogging through the rain all morning at Okefenokee, we were ready for lunch. Angela had read about a nearby town, Folkston, that had been on CBS This Morning and other programs because of it’s fame among rail fans around the country. Seems that all of the rail traffic going into and out of Florida has to go around all that swamp land, and it does so by being funneled through Folkston. Up to 75 trains a day pass through this little town, which must make it a noisy place, but they have embraced this reality and turned it into a community gathering place, complete with a watching platform, ceiling fans, wifi, picnic tables and a speaker that picks up the rail radio signals.
It was a little chilly by the time we finished our lunch, but we hung around for the next train to come through. With all it’s noise and clamor, the train gets everyone’s attention, but then again, that’s why you’re at the Folkston Funnel to begin with.
It was the kind of gathering place where I could see spending time in my retirement years. Going down to the platform, maybe with my radio to listen to a ball game, and watching trains go by.
A Rainy Morning in Okefenokee
The rain that we encountered on Friday afternoon and evening, was predicted to stay for most of Saturday as well, but since it appeared that there might be some breaks between the bands of thunderstorms, we headed to Okefenokee anyway.
I’m glad we did. As our tour guide on Sunday would tell us, this is a National Wildlife Refuge, not to be mistaken with a park. What that means is that it is here for the wildlife, it is their environment and you are just visiting. Now, he told us that as a way to temper down expectations, because he couldn’t guarantee that we’d see anything, though we did.
But, prior to that, by virtue of being in the refuge during rainstorms, we got a really good idea of just how inhospitable and wild the swamp could be. Makes me wonder why anyone decided “yup, this is where we are going to live”, but then again, I am a city kid. This does not scream “let’s go live there” to me.
Then again, the rain meant we really had much of the area to ourselves, and gave us plenty of opportunities to see wildlife and the beauty of the swamp as well. In fact, as we were walking on that very boardwalk you see above, we could hear the alligators in the distance, making their rumbling vibrations in the water to warn off smaller gators. Then, as we took a pit stop during some heavy rainfall in a covered area, we heard it again, much, much closer.
We also were able to get out of the rain for a bit at the Chesser Homestead, and learn more about the people who made this area home. For instance, we learned that the “yard” of the homestead was kept without any growth for a very good reason. Not only did it look neater, but it made it easier to see creepy crawlies and snakes that might be nearby.
We also got very lucky, as we were driving by, we saw a heron on the side of the road, with it’s lunch, and an alligator keeping a very close eye on him hoping for his own lunch, maybe?
Of course, it didn’t rain the entire morning, we did get some views of the landscape and the wildlife without the rain before packing it in and heading to Folkston for lunch. With all the morning rain, we decided to come back in the morning, when it promised to be warm and sunny. More on those stops on future posts.
Brief Stop on St. Simons Island
With a three day weekend upon us, and after my work having kept me away from home for a couple of weeks straight, the wife and I decided to go on a little adventure. We wanted to grab the camera gear and head down to the Okefenokee Swamp and see what sort of photo adventures we could find. With it being a good six hour drive though, we also made plans to make a detour so we could spend a little bit of Friday afternoon on St. Simons Island.
The wife had done a little research, as she always does, and targeted Fort Frederica as an interesting stopping point on the island.
Fort Frederica has some historical importance, as it was the site of a battle between the English and Spanish, that guaranteed Georgia to stay in English hands. It had been a pretty debatable area before that. Now, there are a handful of ruins of the old fort available, but it is also just a lovely landscape, because of the ruins, and of course, the Spanish moss. (Ironic, no?)
Fortunately, the rain held off until after we had visited the Fort, and a local church yard and John Wesley Memorial Garden. It started down while we were on the beach, but it was just about time to get in the car and continue on to Waycross, which would be home base for the rest of the weekend.
You can see the rest of the photos from this stop over on Flickr!
Spending some time on the swamp before heading home today.
posted in: Smartphone, Travel
0
via Instagram http://ift.tt/1iOuMF4
Some Things Can’t be Avoided
posted in: Nature, Observations
0
The weekend before Christmas, the wife and I headed out to spend the weekend in Helen, Georgia. Helen is fairly well known for it’s Alpine Christmas decorations, which seemed like a fun thing to see, and is very close to Unicoi State Park and the Chattahoochee National Park.
Sounds like a great place to get out the camera gear and see what we can capture, right? Read More
View of Stone Mountain from the Park
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/gitXhw
Floating
