Day 55 - Okefenokee Swamp: Stephen C Foster State Park

Alligators, alligators and more alligators... large, medium, small... alone or bunched up in a group... they are everywhere we look. They are the American Alligator and it has estimated that 12,000 of them live in the Okefenokee swamp. But no worries, there hasn't been an accident since 1936.

Fun fact: a crocodile can be distinguished from an alligator by its snout. Crocodiles have more elongated snouts, while alligators have more of a blunt snout with a bump. Also alligators are less aggressive than crocodiles.

We took an hour and a half boat tour with a guide in the morning. Our guide was very knowledgeable and he entertained us with all kinds of facts about the flora and fauna of the Okefenokee swamps.

The first stretch of the trip took us to Billy's lake, an open area of the swamps. The water was so still that it looked like black oil. The reflections made perfect mirror images.

The trees in this area were scarce due to several past fires, fueled by the peat moss present in this swamp during drought periods. On 2007 a fire burned the entire park. Then there was another one in 2011. The forest is still recovering and it will take several years. But I guess it's just another phase in the swamp, as a naturally occurring event.

We drove up the lake and then we turned into a side tributary. The river got smaller and we saw more bald and pond cypresses and yellow water lilies, not yet in bloom.

Our guide showed us an aquatic plant with small yellow flowers called Bladderwort which is carnivorous. In its root system the plant has several bladders with holes. A small nematode or a small insect larva can enter but cannot leave. The trapped insect then decomposes, releasing nitrogen needed by the plant.

Bladderwort flowers

The bubbles are in fact bladders

In the afternoon,we decided to rent a kayak to go further than where the guide had taken us.
We wanted to go all the way to Minnie's lake. It was a paddle of 3.8 miles one way. It was worth it!

Mama turtle with baby

Cormorants

Large gator

Shelter at Minnie's lake

By the shelter, we were lucky to see a small raccoon fishing in the marsh. It looked so nervous and in a hurry, being a raccoon in water infested with gators. It was not distracted by our presence in its search for food. 

Not yet happy with our adventure, we wanted to explore more of the swamp. Our guide directed us to an area outside the park called the River Sill. The primary purposes of the Suwannee River Sill were to facilitate wildfire control by creating impounded conditions during periods of drought, and to arrest the spread of wildfires across the landscape by prolonging inundation. Unfortunately the sill did not work as expected. Moreover, at a certain point of its history, a breach formed. So now it has lost completely its usefulness, but it makes for a nice hike for fishermen and tourists. 

White Ibis

We may have inadvertently saved an ibis while walking by! Right after Bill stopped filming, the gator went back into the water with a big splash, feeling frustrated by our presence.

Find the intruder

how many are there in this picture?

Day 54 - Pensacola to Okefenokee Swamp

We are in a swamp! In Georgia!
We like it when we can stay in a state park. The price is right, and we still get all the hookups, except the dump station. There is a communal one at the entrance.
This camp site has cable.
We are in the middle of a swamp and we are watching Fox News! yeeeeh 😑
Outside tall loblolly pines are enveloped in fog. It's magical. It's raining, and we are done for the day.

Day 53 - Pensacola: Naval Aviation Museum, Fort Pickens, Pensacola Beach, Flora-bama

One of the recommended sites in Pensacola is the Naval Aviation Museum. This is one of the 3 best aviation museums in the U.S. The others are the Smithsonian (Washington DC) and the Air Force (Dayton Ohio). We took a tour at 9:30 with a former Navy pilot that was very interesting. He covered naval aviation history starting with the Wright Brothers through the gulf wars, showing examples of real planes of the periods and how they advanced technologically. It was interesting to see the changes in technology over the years but by the end of the tour we were weary hearing about the various (horrible) battles over this past century, so we decided to move on.

Graduation ceremony inside the museum

Next we drove to the remnants of Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island (a barrier island off the coast of Pensacola). After the war of 1812, a series for forts was built to protect the major ports in the U.S. Fort Pickens was built by slaves to protect the Pensacola harbor in 1834.

Very strategic location for the fort at harbor entrance

Interesting inverted arches to stabilize base on sandy soil

The interesting thing about Fort Pickens is that even though it was in confederate territory, it was under Union control during the whole civil war despite many attacks, and was finally instrumental in convincing the confederate forces to withdraw from Pensacola. The fort was active until end end of WWII.

Heading back from the fort we stopped to walk along the beautiful white sand beaches of the island.

Back in the RV park our snow bird neighbors told us we had to visit Flora-Bama, the famous music lounge on the Florida-Alabama border. This locale was built in 1964 just after the first road was put in on the Florida side of the border. The county on the Alabama side was dry, so this became a very popular location and over time and had up to 20 bars and 4 simultaneous live music stages. It has survived hurricanes and adjacent high rise developments, keeping its original wooden shack/grunge look. Live music starts every day at 11:00 am on into the evening with bands rotating through every few hours. We watched a couple of bands on the main stage, in a crowd of mainly retired snow birds :) Of course there was a lot of cover band baby boomer music we could all relate to ;/

Lots of bras!

View of the Flora-Bama from the beach

Still the same between the high rises