Light In The West: St Marys to the Okefenokee

I had good day in St Marys, learned a little more about the town history,

then paddled some first in a pretty strong breeze on the on the St Marys River, then I caught the tide down on the Crooked River almost to Cumberland Island, still breezy but a nice paddle, ending in the rain the last half hour.

Another night at Crooked River State Park, woke to rain and decided to pass on backcountry camping in the rain on Cumberland Island and instead turned the van and headed west, still much to see but it felt good to know I was on the way back home.

I drove east under I95 to Folkston, and the Flolkston Funnel where all the trains heading south into Florida are funneled through that little town, sometimes 60 trains a day. The few minutes I was there a freight train came lumbering through going south and a few minutes later Amtrak came roaring by also headed south on another track. Big doings at the Funnel!

I drove north timber, scrub, low wet country to Waycross Georgia to pay my respects to Mickey Newbury and the Waycross Georgia farm boy in San Francisco Mabel Joy. Like so many towns, Waycross is a long strip of new cheap retail around an emptied out old brick downtown. They've done their streetscaping and the big downtown Phoenix Hotel has been renovated, you can only hope people will come.

Ironically - and I'm no fan of irony - the small downtowns of the hazy golden past, of small local businesses where people all knew and traded with each other, those town are alive in city neighborhoods, in cities like Portland, where old retail strips that had been hollowed out by strip malls and chains have come back to life and are flourishing. Whether this is possible in small old towns, I guess we'll see.

Continuing a circumnavigation of the Okefenokee swamp, I drove on to Homerville and yet another empty brick downtown. Once upon a time, there was enough money even in this small town to build a very nice building for its time.

Down the west side of the swamp, I stopped just outside Fargo where the highway crossed the black waters of the Suwanee River coming out of the swamp.

I turned north and drove twenty five miles north through scrub and timberland to Stephen Foster State Park in the Okefenokee.

I rented a kayak and had a fantastic afternoon kayaking in the Okefenokee, all alone on the amazingly reflective black water with the cypress trees, water lilies, birds - trees of egrets and wood storks - and a small alligator.

I came back in a pounding rain, but a warm rain on a warm afternoon, and saw the eye of what I think was one big alligator just looking out across the water.