after our time in saint augustine, we began to make our way back towards winston-salem. derek found us a little campground outside of the okefenokee swamps of georgia, so we decided to do a bit of exploring there.
for our first day, we decided a canoe trip through the black waters was on tap. it was a little unnerving, not being able to see what was lurking below, but we just made sure to keep all body parts inside the canoe, as we paddled along the still waters.
off we go… 
the girls and i took one canoe. 
the boys manned the other. 
my view, most of the day. 
kind of surreal. 
the boy wasn’t always in the best of spirits. 🙂 
my view for the day, mostly. 
more of the boyzzzz. 
me. by anna.
we actually saw quite a bit of wildlife, but it was hard to switch from paddling to photographing and by the time i make the transition, we had often rolled past the creatures, or they had noticed us and skittered away. the basking turtles were extremely jumpy and didn’t give you much chance to get a good shot. the alligators mostly were off, semi submerged and hard to spot, but we found a few out in the open….
turtle sighting. 
teen gator. 
swimming gator friends.
for our second adventure in the okefenokee swamps, we went on a little scenic loop, where we stopped to check out a historic home. i’m having a hard time mustering up memories of this, other than what i see in these pictures.
a short hike out to the home… 
porch tub. i need this. 
old timey stuff. 
i need to investigate the purpose of this. 
happy family.
at the furthest spot out on the scenic* loop, to hike out a boardwalk into the middle of the swamp, where there’s a tower, to get a birds eye view of the super flat landscape. (*i don’t remember if it was called scenic or not, but my lack of pictures seems to indicated it wasn’t particularly scenic).
boardwalk hike. not a lidkid favorite. but better than walking in what lies beneath. 
trying to spot creatures from the tower. 
swamp poses. 
the views weren’t the most spectacular. but the landscape is definitely interesting.
our final bit of business was to get junior ranger badges. okefenokee is actually a national wildlife refuge, so not technically a national park service, but they have an excellent education program, and books and badges and all that.
and that just about concludes our time in the georgia swamps. i think we laid low in our campground mostly for the rest of our time. or maybe we left early. i can’t even remember.
The swamp pictures are great!