Canoeing through the Cypress Swamp

The George Smith State Park in eastern Georgia features a cypress/ tupelo swamp with a network of canoe trails.  Tannins from the trees make the water a rich tea-color and the still surface a mirror.  The Trail Dames camped at the spacious and immaculately clean pioneer campsite.  We rented a pair of canoes, and followed the blazes through the swamp, a bit too close to the nest of an angry osprey.  We watched an elegant water snake glide through the water.

Water snake

There was something extremely meditative about being on the peaceful stillness of water, breathing the clean moist air.  Weaving through the cypress, whose reflection in the glassy water created a tangled optical illusion, I lost all sense of time.

We hiked through the longleaf pine forest, which was so different from the forests in north Georgia.  The trail was hot and sandy, but we saw a few flowers.

Lupine fixes nitrogen and so is well suited to this sandy soil (Lupinus diffusus)

Blue star

azalea