More Great Outdoors

One of the places we went on our days in the wilderness used to be a rice plantation but is now a wildlife refuge.  The hikes are mainly on the dykes or levees above the fields.

The car temperature gauge read 97, so walking around above the vegetation was not something we wanted to do.  Luckily, there was a narrow driving trail atop some of these levees, so we drove along and watched the murky waterways.

Aside from a wide variety of waterfowl, we spied many alligators as well!  (Truthfully, none of our alligator pics turned out, so this is an alligator we saw in a totally different wilderness--).

The hottest and buggiest day by far though, was the day we went to a State Park looking for gopher tortoises and indigo snakes.  My youngest son abandoned the trail after being attacked by swarms of sweat sucking flies.  He stayed in the shelter of this covered bridge while my older son carried on. This was one of those times when I just didn't know which kid to accompany--but I ended up staying back instead of pursuing the trail.

View from inside the bridge

I had a brief moment of intense panic right before my older son returned.  I mean, what if he was bitten by a snake out there hiking alone in the heat?  But, it was not a long trail, and he did see a grand old gopher tortoise which he said was worth the torment of the hellish heat and insects.

The best thing about going to this park was the drive through the farmland to get there.  Each little old building or house looked like it held a million stories.

I think the scraggly little crop here is peanuts.

The very best house and barn were partially collapsed and abandoned. (My roadside picture of it was totally not exciting so I haven't included it here.) My son got out of the car and went around taking terrific pictures (property of him and his artistic purposes) until we both felt a little like a crazy might come out of nowhere with a shot gun and rail at him for trespassing.

Maybe we've seen too many movies.