2-20-07 Way down upon the Suwannee River…GA

We took a boat ride on the Okefenokee Swamp to the headwaters of the Suwannee River today. We stopped at the Stephen Foster State Park located on the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Stephen Foster wrote Oh, Suzanna, My Old Kentucky Home, Old Folks at Home (Suwannee River), and several thousand other songs. He hadn’t even been to Georgia when he wrote the song…he was just trying to find the name of a southern river that would fit into it poetically. He and his brother found the Suwannee on the map. Now it’s the Florida state song. Aside from very orange/brown water, the swamp looked beautiful. Lily pads, warm clean air (no smell), cypress trees (no mangroves like in the Everglades), alligators, turkey vultures, ibis, and very few tourists. How do you like the photo of the Turkey-Vulture Love Birds? You haven’t seen or heard about Elsie lately so I’ll post a picture that proves we didn’t feed her to an alligator, at least not yet! It was a lovely stop on our first drive heading WEST! Now we are back to Wal-Marts again. We are just getting set up in Tifton, GA. Gene will be putting up the satellite dish and I’ll post this when he’s finished. It seems odd to be on the westward leg of our journey. As anxious as I am to get back home and see everyone, and to pat Caroline on the tummy, I’m sad to think that we are getting closer and closer to the end of our trip each day. Gene has a number of north, south, winding routes in mind…but our main direction is WEST!