Part the Second, Day the Third

I hadn't looked at my swamp pictures much before this blogging project.  Unfortunately I just realized that many of my pictures from the third day didn't turn out as well as I thought.

I tried to take pictures of all the mile markers on this day--but some of them didn't turn out.  I think Denise grabbed several pictures that I missed.

The lighting made picture taking just a bit on this day for someone using automatic settings (which I do).  I really don't have an excuse for not exploring the manual settings on my camera except that I've never bothered.

Deb grabbed some really good flower shots.

This was the day of the cypress trees, even more than the day before.  I tried to capture pictures of unusual ones.

I think this red stuff was called bubble gum moss.  Whatever it was it was definitely natural, despite looking like remnants of a paint ball fight or spray paint.

I think this was the spot that Deb asked me to make sure to grab a picture of them floating between the trees. This was the best of them I think--horizontal rather than a couple portrait oriented ones.

Some of the gators we saw were barely visible like this one.  Look for the eyes in the center of the picture.

The book about the history of the swamp that I've been reading mentions seeing many nests in swamp trees.  I'm not sure what type of bird built this nest.

This area felt like a cathedral with very tall trees and sun shining in between the trunks.

The miles kept getting closer to the end...

You couldn't miss all of the home signs as you traveled south.

Many of the lakes were nearly covered by lily pads with only a small clear channel in the center.  A couple times we moved the canoe into the pads as a motor boat zoomed by.

I think these guys were fishing--several of the motor boats that we saw were fishermen.  Most of the others were simply sightseeing I think.

I'm pretty sure that the Minnards got much closer to this egret.

Thankfully we didn't get very close to this ribbon snake.

We'd planned to stop at this platform for lunch, but a group of boy scouts had the same idea.  Instead we just used the outhouse and pushed off downstream.

We tied up next to some bushes for lunch.  Unfortunately Denise's canoe drifted into the bushes several times.

I like the contrast of the different colors in this shot--though I should probably try to adjust things as I think the sun slightly washed things out.

I think that there will be at least two more swamp posts.  There was a small museum we visited for a few minutes and I want to cover that in a separate post after I cover the last of our time on the water.

~Matt