Crooked River State Park

Brice aboard the USS "Ground Hog".

Mandy, Brice, Bonnie, and Brenda listening out for any wild things to come out of the jungle:)

Bonnie, Brenda, and Mandy ferrying over to Cumberland Island. It 'twas a little chilly on deck.

Mandy spotted this gator taking a snooze after making a mad dash into and out of cannel. It's mating season in the Okeefenokee:)

Well it's been one month since I've blogged about our trip to Crooked River State Park. This place is wondrous. Kings Bay Submarine Base is located adjacent to the park, and although we didn't tour the Base, Brice did find a land-locked sub that he just had to climb on.

Cumberland Island is just across the river -bay which is accessible only by ferry twice a day. The ferry departs from St.Mary's and it's just a 45 minute ride across. Braxton's BSA Troop made the trip on Thursday and we went over on Friday. A walking self guided tour of the ruins of the old Carnegie Estate was an interesting adventure - particularly while walking through the narrow foot paths of jungle like foliage . Wild horses and other wild creatures abound on the island and when we heard something running toward us through the thick jungle it got the "lady-folks" a little on edge. All went well though and the rain held off most of the time.

The Okeefenokee Swamp was just down the road apiece so we boarded one of their tour boats and visited about 50 alligators in the swamp. All of them were very peaceful and meant us no harm, but Mandy was startled by the one pictured here. It seems that this was the beginning of mating season and some of them started bellowing. This one let out a bellow and ran into the water where he made some more menacing growls and made the water jump. Then, as quickly as he went into the water - he came back out and began taking his sunbath. Mandy excitedly told us every detail .... several times:)

On Thursday, we watched the Shuttle Discovery blast off for it's last voyage. We watched it from the beach at Fort Clinch State Park, FLA. It wasn't a whole lot to see except for a sparkler in the sky and a very very long plume of smoke. What can you expect from 100 miles away! Still, pretty neat!

The day before we left to come home, we contacted some old high school friends in Jacksonville, FL. Lloyd and Vera Able both graduated from Baker High School which has now been torn down and we haven't seen them since the 20th reunion. Anyway we couldn't pass up an opportunity to visit them since we were so close to Jacksonville. Those of you who don't know the Ables would enjoy their company. They traveled the world while Lloyd was in the Navy, and they had many adventures to talk about. Even though you may never have met them, you may have seen some of Lloyd's work. In the motion picture "Top Gun", Lloyd was one of the Navy Pilots flying the dog fighting scenes. In the closing credits, you can find him listed as LTCMD Lloyd "BOZO" Able. Very Cool! Who says I don't know important people:)!

That's all for now folks .... next trip.... Unicoi State Park, Helen, GA.