Monday, March 10, 2014

Way down upon the Suwanee River....


Left Brain and I like see things all the way through ... and now we can say we've seen the beginning and end of the Suwanee River.

We saw the headwaters of the river while touring the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia earlier on our trek southward.  Now we have seen where it empties out into the Gulf of Mexico in Suwanee Florida.



The River runs about 246 miles and it is a beauty.

Today we biked the Suwanee River Lower Refuge and enjoyed the solitude of being on this hard packed road...even with all the potholes.

When we came to a large pond I brought my bike to a stop as I spotted an alligator basking on the far shore. 

Check out  the shore on the far side of the pond.

Had he been nearer to me, I would have kept pedaling along.


Yup - it's an alligator.
 I was able to walk part way around the pond to get a little closer and snap a better shot of him.  This is where Left Brain yelled to tell me I'd gotten close enough.


This was about half way towards him on the side of the pond.
It was also where the gator suddenly dove into the water and since I wasn't sure which direction he was heading, I beat it back to the bike.




I'm sure he was only startled by my approach and left the bank for the safety of the water, but I wanted to be sure.  

They can move very quickly, even on land, and I was pretty sure Left Brain can ride faster than I can so it was time to go.


There were many pretty flowers in the swampy areas as well as along the road.


When we returned to the car and locked up the bikes we took the short hike down to the river for a last look.



Long Live the Queen of the Suwanee River

2 comments:

  1. they're such amazing critters! unchanged for eons, probably.

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  2. Re: the above comment ... I think they are the same, but smaller than they used to be ... much smaller, thankfully :)
    I am trying to get caught up on my reading and I had missed several of your posts ... all good ones, now that I have read them. You do have that photographic eye, Cheryl. Your pictures are exceptional and you capture just the right angles and reflections ... they look very professional. I think I may have had that talent at one point ... now I simply point and shoot and pray :) I loved your owls at Homosassa Springs. I haven't seen any barn owls since I volunteered at the nature center. We had a pair of surrogate parents and we raised barn owls from the egg to be released with telemetry so we could determine why they were disappearing from our area and where they were going. The disappearance was a given, duh ... loss of habitat, but interestingly many of our birds ended up far south in Louisianna and Missouri. Who would have guessed.

    Well, we have sirans blowing from two different communities right now ... I was ignoring them because we always have them at 10am on Tuesdays, but they are continuing to blow so I think I better go turn on the radio and see what is happening. You have a great time in your new place. I will be looking forward to hearing all about Suwanee :)

    Andrea @ From The Sol

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