Some Trip Stats

January 5th to February 2nd, 8 state parks and 1 commercial park, 5 states, 1,529 miles on the MP 3, our milage ranged from 12.5 to 15 MPH. All in all is was a good trip. The weather didn't cooperate as much as it should have. I took a pic of this sign somewhere along the way. It should be taken literally and can also be a life lesson. 

Last day out

We did a long hike this morning around the perimeter of Laura Walker SP. After that we drove a few miles to visit Okefenokee Swamp Park. It's a civilian facility on public land. They have a boat tour and a Rail Road ride. We did neither. There was a Camellia garden with several different varieties. See pics. The weather today was, without a doubt, the best we have had the entire trip. Our last day. Should be home tomorrow. 

Laura S Walker SP Georgia

We are just outside of Waycross. We have been here before but it was probably in the original MP and neither one of us has a clear memory of our prior visit. This is our last stop before Beaufort. Our stay here will be for 2 nights. 

Ocklockonee day 4

Our plan today was visit a State Park not too far from here. All of our Nav systems gave us different directions. Turns out, that park is 16,000 acres and it does not have a headquarters building. There are several roads that enter the park property and none of them has a sign indicating that fact. Massive confusion. We eventually gave up. That deer is a famous resident of this park. It has given birth to 2 white fawns but neither one survived. We move tomorrow into Southern Georgia.

Wakulla Springs

We are still camped at Ocklockonee but we decided to drive 30 miles to this place, which is another state park, and take in the sights. The park covers over 6000 acres, most of it off limits to people. We did a boat tour on the upper portion of the spring. Tons of wildlife that was completely habituated to tour boats. Even the turtles didn't flinch. The spring is gargantuan, I think the guy said 400,000 GPM. The Lodge was built by the previous owner. His name was Edward Ball. Kinda weird. We are here one more full day. There is another place we can visit tomorrow.

Okeedokee river day 2

OK, let's talk about the Red Cockaded Woodpecker or RCW. This park has a large stand of old growth Longleaf Pines. The RCW is our only woodpecker that makes its home on old growth living trees. Only 1% of that habitat remains, you know, because we cut down all the friggin trees. The RCW is very rare. It was declared "endangered" in 1970. The trees that support RCW nests here in the park are marked with paint and are given special protection during the periodic prescribed burns. Other than being rare the RCW isn't particularly noteworthy. It's a little bigger than a bluebird. The red-cockade (on the male only) is a small red streak above the cheek. The nest in these live trees can sometimes take years to make. The male incubates the egg helped by "helper birds" from the previous nesting season. You will be tested later. We did a long hike around the park this morning and I took these pics.

Ochlockonee River State Park

This park is 4 miles south of the bustling community of Sopchoppy. We arrived here a few hours ahead of a tornado warning. As the storm approached we moved to the campground bathroom. That's twice we've made that move on this trip. The storm ended up being disappointing so we were only hunkered down for half an hour. I took that pic of the Ochlockonee river a few minutes before the storm blew through.