Georgia Sampler Day 4 : Okefenokee Swamp and More Roads (3/23/2014)

I woke up before dawn so I could walk along the Jekyll Island beach and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic. There were only a hand full of others out and they were on the beach proper rather than the paved walkway along the beach where I was. While there weren't a lot of clouds to add to the event, sunrise did have its moments.

Sunrise at Jekyll Island, GA.

After breakfast, we drove east for a little over an hour to the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. En route, there were lots of trees, often with obvious management. That means uniform tree stems in rows with underbrush control. That roadside view would continue until we were almost to Tifton later in the day, where a there were greater numbers of grazing cattle and some fields which were often irrigated. It occured to me that with the shorter and less severe winters, there was less need to grow crop to sustain cattle through the winter. Yet there was hardly any corn residue or bins seen for finishing. I have not been impressed with the quantity or quality of ag on this trip.

At Okefenokee, we toured the visitor center displays, watched the overview video, and took a 90 minute boat ride out into the swamp. I have new appreciation for the phrase "alligator infested swamp". I thought we MIGHT see one at a distance if we were lucky. Not a problem here. There were one or two every few hundred feet and within maybe 20 feet of the boat. There was also a near encounter with a poisonous snake, but I didn't see it. A mother owl was another highlight of the wildlife viewing.

One of numerous alligators we saw.

I was expecting a cypress swamp, but there was more variety to the flora than that. The cypresses had taken a hit in a 2007 fire, but were coming back. There were also water lily "praries", floating peat moss "islands", and an ill-fated canal that was to be used near the turn of the century to help transport clear-cut cypress out of the area. The project instigator had not surveyed the canal route in advance and found out too late that the river he wanted to reach was atop a 60 foot ridge relative to the swamp. The canal is now used a as a thoroughfare for tour boats, canoes, and kayaks.

View over the bow of our tour boat, travelling on a canal built in the 19th century,

 Sideways view of part of the swamp taken from an observation tower.

When the boat returned to the visitor center, we had lunch. The feature item was boiled-in-the-shell peanuts which we hadn't heard of until we started seeing signs along the road. The road side stands were closed and/or didn't look very hygenic. We were told, though, that they often have the freshest and best. The ones we had at the restaurant were apparently frozen and then reheated. We liked them and would have them again. We finished out visit with a 1.5 mile round trip walk into the swamp on a boardwalk. Largest reptile on the boardwalk was small green lizards a few inches long. Driving back to the refuge entrance, we did encounter a gator on the roadside.

Roadside alligator.

The rest of the day was spent on the 5 hour drive from the swamp to our motel in Atlanta. As noted above, there were lots of trees and not much ag along the way. The roads were straighter with fewer stops and slow downs than our trip down from the north. Speed limits in Georgia are similar to those in Minnesota, but 4 lane highways are often posted slower than corresponding road sections in the gopher state. We also have noted that almost every little town has a Dollar General or Family Dollar store in it. For a while we played a game to see who could spot the store first and then would go around and name an item we would buy there.

We were surprised at the amount of I-75 traffic at 9:00 PM on a Sunday night heading into Atlanta. It was almost like I-94 heading into Minneapolis during the summer. We don't know why that is the case. It didn't seem like people were coming back from their swamp homes.