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Published: December 16th 2007
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Morning in the swamps
It's a bit hard to drive fast through the mist, so we pretended the it wasn't there. Posted by: Onaxthiel: Gatorgatorgator... I'm taking a day off/giving Obfuscator a day off from typing today, as I felt like writing again. It must be something like three weeks since the last time I wrote. Anyhow, we started our morning in Laura Walker state park, right outside the Okefenokee swamp. This region of the country is foggy virtually every morning, a fact I remember all too well from when I was stationed in Savannah and had algae growing on my car due to the constant morning mists. Being beside a swamp did nothing to help alleviate the grey.
Our plan for the day was to head into a park we had heard about in the area that ran boat tours and supposedly had very good facilities. I think I wasn't really prepared for how well laid out the Swamp Park was. The park has been there for about 70 years, and looks to have some of its original buildings as well as much newer structures for many of its exhibits. The general admission tickets gave us access to three guided activities as well as the park grounds.
The first of these was the boat tour. Usually, this is an
Spider web
Caught in the morning light. The web, not us. one hour trip between the floating peat islands that make up much of the swamp. Due to the drought and fires that have struck Georgia for the last few seasons, this trip has been cut back to one half-hour and many of the regular stops are simply inaccessible. I thought this was unfortunate, since I really liked the parts of the swamp we did see, and certainly would have liked to see more. The boat ride gave us our first opportunity to see alligators in the swamp, something I had a hard time convincing Obfuscator could be done outside of Florida. Some of the sites along the boat route included an observation tower used in filming several films, and a location called Skull Island, where the Seminole Indians used to post the skulls of animals before bathing in the swamp water to heal themselves of ailments. An alligator nest surrounded by the shells of the 19 baby gators that had hatched that spring was another spot that our guide pointed out to us. As we went along the way he cheerily informed us of how gators wait under the water to spot potential prey and then leap out to drag
the doomed stray dog/bird/other gator/tourist/ into a death roll, and that the only way to get them to relax their jaws was to put a knife in their peanut sized brain. He then eagerly explained that that is why he advises everyone to carry a pocket knife if they are going into the swamps. We did have pocket knives didn't we? This is one of those situations of asking exactly the right guys. Being that I only had two this time, I did feel a bit under dressed. But I think they're really all I need.
The second tour was a ride on the two mile narrow gage railroad that runs a loop on the edge of the park. Back around the turn of the last century, a railroad like this was used by a local lumber company to haul out massive and ancient (one started growing about 30 years prior to the battle of Hastings) cypress trees. On our visit, the little sightseeing cars held only Obfuscator and me, and the engineer in his stylized engine. He pointed out the old logging equipment, the reproduction Seminole village, the large pond that the park maintains that was used as
One of the skulls of skull island
Where our guide expounded upon small animals and tourists being eaten by alligators. the primary water source in fighting last summer's fires, and lastly, the authentic cabin from deep in the swamps that the park brought in to remind the visitor that THIS is Georgia history. There is an entire farm laid out around the cabin, with chickens and goats. Our guide informed us that he was raised on a farm very much like this one, and told us how things were run in the days of his youth. It was a rather informative guided tour.
Once we had thanked him for his reminiscences, we moved to our last and arguably most interesting activity...the reptile show. The presenter was a tall, skinny dude with a crocodile Dundee style bowie knife hanging from his belt. He introduced us to his non-venomous snakes, and his one and two year old baby gators. Fun facts from his presentation included telling venomous from regular snakes, showing us how snakes climb trees, that alligators live as long or longer than humans, and intimating that at three years of age mother alligators force their hatchlings out of the nest, on pain of being eaten. This muscular version of tough love is necessary to protect her next brood, who
Alligator Nest
You can see some of the egg shells around the nest would otherwise be eaten by their older siblings. That's why they call reptiles cold blooded. (Of course it's true. Go look it up. I'll wait right here. Check it out? Yeah, that's why I had such a stunningly high grade in biology back in high school.)
We finally bid adieu (high foreign language grades, too!) to the Swamp Park and drove on to that favorite of my old haunts, Savannah. I called another of my old buddies, R and told him I would meet him for dinner. To keep the Gator theme going, I elected to meet him at B&D's burger. B&D's is just a decent burger joint with an alligator mascot and all their foods named after Savannah landmarks. Personally, I am a fan of the Lucas, a pile of beef topped with blue cheese. Obfuscator likes the Oglethorpe, which wears an egg as a hat. We weren't able to eat very quickly though, as R got lost on the way. So much for Ranger land navigation skills. In fairness, he doesn't go downtown very much, and I practically lived there on my weekends for a year and a half, so it might be a bit unrealistic to
expect him to find the place easily, but I think our waitress was waiting for us to give up after 75 minutes of waiting. After finishing our meals, we headed out of town over the highway 17 bridge, also known as the Big Bridge. By this time, it was really dark, giving us a lovely view of the city down below. The only severe downside of the day: the late arrival of my old buddy meant we didn't leave SAV until almost 7:00, so our park for camping was closed by the time we got there. It was near Beaufort, SC, Home of the Marine Corps Paris Island, and this caused us to have to pay a premium for a motel.
Lessons learned: I found out a bit about smoking meats and grinding grist. While I'm still not up to the level of trying it, I thought it was good information. Snakes venomousness or lack of it can be told by the rounding of their eyes' pupils (non-venomous) or cat-like slits (Poison!) and that poisonous snakes can't climb trees. These aren't hard and fast everywhere, but do all apply around North America.
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Mom
non-member comment
Are you sure?
Are you sure that you are just typing the blog because you wanted to give Obfuscator the day off? You maybe weren't fast enough with your pocket knive to save his fingers from the alligator in that picture and you don't want to tell me that he's minus a few digits. Love, Mom