03-10-2019 Okefenokee Don’t Ya Love that Name!?

Current Location: Stephen Foster State Park, Fargo, Georgia

Foggy and 64 degrees F at 9AM

When we left Jacksonville yesterday (on Sunday morning), I confidently headed in the direction of I-295 toward I-10 West.  Seems as though a couple of weeks navigating Jacksonville freeways built my confidence again.  After all, I did learn to drive on the San Bernardino Freeway (currently I-10) back in the 60’s.  It also helped that it was during church time and the freeways were almost empty.  We have noticed traveling through Northern Florida that there are a LOT of churches, almost one on every block.  I had no idea there were so many different versions of the Baptist Church.

Within a very few miles along the interstate, we turned north on secondary highways heading toward our destination.  I was thrilled to once again be on open roads, empty of traffic, and surprisingly also empty of telephone lines and fences. Gorgeous.  I know we can find spaces like that out west, but never thought to find that kind of clean landscape here in the south.  The forests, marshes and swamps of Florida and Georgia are truly wild lands.

We were required to check out of JAX NAS by 11 and couldn’t check into our site at Stephen C Foster State Park until 1.  With a short 90 miles to our destination, we found ourselves ahead of schedule. We looked for a wide spot for lunch, except all the places in the road that had room for our rig were church parking lots and they were full.  Eventually a spot appeared, and we stopped for a pleasant lunch in the warm Florida air and a walk for Mattie before we continued north. 

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is huge, covering 630 square miles in southeast Georgia, including nearly all the world renowned Okefenokee Swamp.  Stephen C Foster State Park is almost in the geographical center of the refuge, and is the only place to camp in an RV in the swamp.  There are three entrances, however, to the refuge lands, which can get a bit confusing.

We found out after arriving at the State Park that the actual visitor center was an hour and a half back near our route, and we should have known to go there first on our way to the state park.  We usually like to use the visitor centers as a good way to get oriented to the landscape and history of where we are, but in this case, there wasn’t much available. 

Also, it is important to note that there is basically no cell phone or internet service in this area, so looking anything up is not possible, not even at the state park office where we checked in and registered for our reserved campsite.  The store is small, and has tee shirts, stuffed alligators, and kids books, but nothing that would give us any more information about the swamp and park except for the map of the canoe trails and the official NWR brochure for the swamp.

What we discovered in that brochure is that most of the “attractions” of the swamp are back at that main entrance on the eastern side.  In addition to the Visitor Center, the area has several walking trails, an overlook tower, the Chesser Island Boardwalk, the Chesser Homestead trail, the Deerstand Trail, the Longleaf Pine Trail, the Phernetton Trail, the Upland Discovery Trail, and the Ridleys Island Boardwalk.

Here at the State Park, we have the lovely campground, a small loop trail that surrounds the campground, and the boat launch.  It is here that we will take the ranger led boat ride and will launch our kayaks to explore the several water trails that are part of the area around the state park.

We settled into our site and adjusted to the warm steamy afternoon with the fantastic fan on full blast before we gave up and turned on the air.  We have no internet, but a complete surprise, we do have a limited cable service, so can get a weather prediction at least now and then.

It was the first day of Daylight Savings time, and we knew that daylight would linger till 8 pm or so.  After an early supper, we decided it had cooled enough that an evening walk would be a perfect way to end the day. 

The nature trail and boardwalk in the vicinity of the boat basin is almost a mile and a half of well groomed trail in addition to the elevated boardwalk that meanders out into the swamp. We learned that the difference between a wetland swamp and a wetland marsh is that the swamp has trees, mostly cypress.

We also learned that logging of cypress was  extensive in the early 1900’s and supported communities of hardy settlers .  We walked through the thickly vegetated swamp, wondering how many varieties of plants it must have.  I was rewarded with a sign at the end of the walk that said the Okefenokee Swamp supports more than 620 species of plants. We also marveled at how in the world anyone would navigate in a swamp.  No clue.  Maybe we will learn about that at the Visitor Center or on the boat ride.

We were also rewarded with one lone alligator, even though everywhere we go there are signs warning of the presence of alligators.  I didn’t see any water birds at all, not one.  We are repeatedly warned not to feed the wildlife, but so far this season, actual wildlife views have been few and far between.  I expect that might change today as we take the boat ride into the marsh and walk on some of the trails at the wildlife refuge.

The campground  here is quite nice, with some sites very private and large, and others a bit more open and smaller.  It is hard to choose sites from the internet, and I tried for the several big pull through sites, but none were available.  Seeing the sites in person, I was glad we didn’t get one. 

They are along a paved road rather than the quiet meandering small road that goes through the park.  The ground is very wet, and yet we are on hard sand and completely level.  In all our campsites this year, including cement pads in many places, we haven’t been this level.  We haven’t bothered to drop the jacks.

We love that Mattie is allowed on the trails and is only restricted from going on the boardwalks in the refuge, but not at the state park.

Another amenity that tickled us are the classic southern porch wooden rockers on the screened in porches. There is one at the registration office, and they are even at the campground restrooms, which are called “comfort stations”.  Maybe they figured campers might need a break from the bugs.  So far, the bugs haven’t been too bad, but there are some truly big, truly scary looking wasps that seem to think our motorhome would make a great place to live.  We will do our best to avoid those creepy critters.

With good weather expected on Monday morning and rain in the afternoon, we decided that we would do the boat ride in the morning and then drive back to the main visitor center in the afternoon.  With clear weather in the forecast for Tuesday, we saved that day for our planned kayak into the wilds of the swamp on our own.