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Okefenokee Swamp Park, Waycross, Georgia.
The next day it was still raining, and it rained all day. Normal people would have stayed indoors.
But no ... we drove up to Georgia, to the Okefenokee Swamp.
The entrance also included talks and demonstrations by park staff. Again ... just for the two of us.
Okefenokee suffered a massive forest fire in 2007, it was so bad that the smoke reached Atlanta.
This is just a controlled burn.
It was still smoldering when I was there.
Our camp at Round Top was in a huge swamp meadow, in a very flat area of Georgia. But the clouds in the morning almost looked like mountains
Effortlessly uploaded by Eye-Fi
On March 16-17, 2011; Jim and Judy took a trip to the Okefenokee Swamp in south Georgia. We drove from Valdosta to Fargo and St. George on highway 94. In St. George we turned north on highway 121. We arrived at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge just south of Folkston. We ate lunch in the Okefenokee Adventures Cafe, toured the Visitor Center, and took a 90-minute boat tour in the canal dug around 1895 to 1900 to attempt to haul out cypress timber. The canal didn't work; so, a railroad came and were successful at hauling out timber. We left the refuge and drove north to Folkston and enjoyed visiting the Folkston Funnel, a high-tech shelter for observing, logging, photographing, and videoing north and south bound trains. Finally we drove further north to Waycross to spend the night at a Hampton Inn which had complimentary high-speed Internet that worked. We enjoyed a dinner of blackened fish at Cedar River Seafood Restaurant in Waycross.
We spent Wednesday night in Waycross, GA and took a round-a-bout way home. We drove to Blackshear, GA and saw the old home where Jim's grandparents lived. Then we drove to Alma, GA where his first cousin had lived before he died as a teenager. Next we drove through Nicholls and Douglas, GA. We came back home through Pearson, Lakeland, and Hahira. We ate lunch-supper at Smok 'n Pig in Valdosta.
The Okefenokee was formed over the past 6,500 years by the accumulation of peat in a shallow basin on the edge of an ancient Atlantic coastal terrace, the geological relic of a Pleistocene estuary. The swamp is bordered by Trail Ridge, a strip of elevated land believed to have formed as coastal dunes or an offshore barrier island. The St. Marys River and the Suwannee River both originate in the swamp. The Suwannee River originates as stream channels in the heart of the Okefenokee Swamp and drains at least 90 percent of the swamp's watershed southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. The St. Marys River, which drains only 5 to 10 percent of the swamp's southeastern corner, flows south along the western side of Trail Ridge, through the ridge at St. Marys River Shoals, and north again along the eastern side of Trail Ridge before turning east to the Atlantic.
The Okefenokee was formed over the past 6,500 years by the accumulation of peat in a shallow basin on the edge of an ancient Atlantic coastal terrace, the geological relic of a Pleistocene estuary. The swamp is bordered by Trail Ridge, a strip of elevated land believed to have formed as coastal dunes or an offshore barrier island. The St. Marys River and the Suwannee River both originate in the swamp. The Suwannee River originates as stream channels in the heart of the Okefenokee Swamp and drains at least 90 percent of the swamp's watershed southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. The St. Marys River, which drains only 5 to 10 percent of the swamp's southeastern corner, flows south along the western side of Trail Ridge, through the ridge at St. Marys River Shoals, and north again along the eastern side of Trail Ridge before turning east to the Atlantic.
The Chesser homestead was built-in 1927 of yellow pine and reportedly cost $200.00 to build. Originally, the building had four rooms and it featured an indoor kitchen. Bathroom facilities were outside, but a bathtub was located on the back porch. Two bedrooms were added as the family grew to seven children. The Chesser's were a rugged family, carving out a life in the often harsh conditions of the area. Their history is typical of many area settlers; they ate what they could shoot, trap, catch and grow on the sandy soil.