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October 12, 2023 – My last post said I’d add updates – to that September 10 post – as I hiked the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail, in France. But alas, I never got the chance. The days were just too hectic, the “free” French WiFi was iffy at best, and most days it was enough just to shower, wash that day’s clothes for the next day, and get a good meal – at the end of the day. I also said I’d put those updates between two sets of asterisks (below), which is what I’ll do now, now that I’m back home in God’s Country, safe and sound. (As this first week back moves along. It’s taking some time to get over the jet lag and get back up to speed, like understanding what people around me are saying…)

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September 10, 2023 – In my last post, Stevenson Trail – from Le Puy to La Bastide-Puylaurent, I wrote about my upcoming trip to France, to Hike the GR70. (The Robert Louis Stevenson Trail, described in his 1879 book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.) There I wrote about the first half of the hike. I wanted to do a second post to cover the rest, but alas, the time for doing that has run out: Today’s the day. Meaning later this evening I’ll be on my way, leaving the ATL on a red-eye flight. (And getting to Paris early Monday morning.)

The thing is, while I’m in France I’ll only have a tablet, not a laptop. With every thing I can call my own for a month supposedly weighing 15 pounds or less, all in one pack. So finishing another post while overseas will be problematic to say the least. So I’ll try this: Write up this post beforehand, then update it as I hike the Trail. (After enjoying Paris and Lyon.)

Then I’ll put in updates “on the road,” between these two sets of asterisks:

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And now for the delayed updates: For starters, I’ll have to update the Trail – from Le Puy to La Bastide-Puylaurent – my next-to-last post – in the post or posts I’ll do next. For one thing, the journey from Le Puy – pronounced “Le Pew,” as in Pepé Le Pew – down to Bastide turned out a bit different than anticipated. Different details, adventures and fill-in-the-blanks kind of stuff.

Like our first day’s hike on Sunday, September 17. We got to in Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille only to find the whole town closed for the night. Which made it the first of several “beerless nights.” (See the note below on my definition of a Camino hike.) And we did end up days later at Camping Nature Beyond the Clouds, “located on a volcanic plateau at an altitude of 1100m [3,600 feet] with an unobstructed view of all horizons.” That was the first of several “Kamping Kabins,” of the type featured at KOA Kampgrounds back in the states. But we had to wait until the next morning to see the low-lying clouds in the valley below to see why it got that name.

But mostly I remember rocks. Lots of rocks, strewn in, around and across the paths. And I remember thinking to myself, quite often during the early days of the hike, “If you fall, fall backwards. The pack will cushion you.” On that note I only slipped and fell two times, both on the last day. The second time possibly because I was in a hurry to get to the final destination. But the first time happened because of a particularly moist and misty early morning dew. It collected on some slick, shale-like rock, which made my left foot slip as I tried to climb up and over this particular rock… And I fell to the left, tweaking my left ankle.

I walked gingerly on it the rest of that day and well into the rest-day that followed.

But to do justice to the journey I really need to devote at least two more posts on it. Meaning, “so much for my experiment of thinking I could post updates while on an actual ‘Camino hike.’” Which I define as a hike where you don’t have to pack a tent, sleeping bag and all your food. Instead, at the end of each day you look forward to a room with a warm bed, hot shower and cold beer. And which also means it’s time to get back to the original post, which will cover me until I can get over my jet lag and back to my at-home rhythm. And share some of the inspirational lessons I learned along the way. After all, this Stevenson Trail hike was a pilgrimage:

A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life

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Returning to the original September 10 post: So stay tuned! Meanwhile, for a preview of those last 50 miles I checked Robert Louis Stevenson Trail – Enlightened Traveller®. Here are the highlights. From La Bastide-Puylaurent, we climb to “Chambonnet Plateau, cross the Atlantic-Mediterranean watershed, and head down valley to picture-postcard Chasseradès.” (And enter “Cévennes proper,” to which the terms “rugged” and “mountainous” aptly apply.)

Then comes a memorable climb to Mont Lozère and Le Pic de Finiels, the highest point in south-central France. “A short and relatively-steep descent is followed by a gentle hike to Finiels. Then follow a picturesque trail into Camisard Country and Le Pont de Montvert.” Heading to Florac we’re supposed to see “memorable views over the ‘blue waves’ of the Cevennes hills,” with alternate views of Mediterranean and Alpine flora, “and back again.”

In the “steep-sided, red rock” Mimente Valley we’ll pass by “menhirs and chestnut groves, the traditional staff of life in the Cevennes.” Which leads to the end of the trip, at Saint-Jean-du-Gard. (After hiking up the Corniche des Cevennes, said to offer 360-degree “last-gasp photos.” See also Cévennes – Wikipedia: “The Corniche des Cévennes (the D 907) is a spectacular road between St-Jean-Gard and Florac. [Or vice-versa.) It was constructed at the beginning of the 18th century to enable the movement of Louis XIV’s troops during his conflict with the Camisards.”)

Anyway, Stevenson reached the town on October 3, 1878. We will reach it – if all goes according to plan – on October 3, 2023. 145 years to the day after Stevenson ended his journey. And sold his faithful donkey Modestine, then took a stagecoach to Alès. We will take a day off from our hikes. (Of four, six and five days hiking in a row, with two days off in between.) Then take a train to Ales, and from there head back to Paris and on home to the States.

In the meantime, if you’re interested check out Walking the GR70 Chemin de Stevenson – I Love Walking In France. I listed some of my own reasons for doing such hikes in prior posts, but mostly I do it for the adventure. And the challenge, and to get away from the rut of ordinary, everyday life. But I’ll probably add more reasons, while I’m hiking, in those updates from France. (Between the two sets of asterisks above.) In the meantime, wish me Happy Hiking!

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The hiking was mostly happy, but challenging, as I hope to detail in future posts. (While also commenting on upcoming Feast days, like October 18’s remembering St. Luke – physician, historian, artist. See also On Saints Luke, and James of Jerusalem – 2021.) The food was great, as were the many spectacular views from the tops of all those hills in the Cevennes. Which is another way of saying I’m still looking for an answer for people who ask, “Why would anyone want to do that?”

The upper image is courtesy of St Jean Du Gard France – Image Results.

The lower image is courtesy of Pilgrimage – Image Results, which led me to Why the Oldest Form of Travel Could Be the Most Popular in a Post=COVID World: “Pilgrimages are the oldest form of travel,” from the start to go to shrines or temples and leave offerings, and/or connect to God or ancestors. Also defined as a “hyper-meaningful journey” or “sacred endeaver,” making it different from regular forms of travel or leisure; “it is the meaning or transformation that occurs.”

One pilgrimage that has exploded is the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes in Europe. There are many pathways, but one of the main pathways is the Camino Frances, which is a trail that goes from France to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Santiago, Spain. 

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July 10, 2023 – In Gearing up … Stevenson Trail I noted that in September – a mere two months from now – I’ll fly back to Paris. From there I’ll join my two hiking companions and start the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail. (In Le Puy-en-Velay, 340 miles southeast of Paris.) Which brings up a post I did some time ago, on why an old guy like me would keep on doing things, like a multi-day 150-mile hike in a far-away foreign country. (Like Italy’s Way of St. Francis last year, and before that three separate hikes on the Camino de Santiago.)

John Steinbeck explained it pretty well. He began Part Two of Travels with Charley by noting the many men his age who – told to slow down – “pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.” (They “trade their violence for a small increase in life span.”) But that wasn’t his way:

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage…  If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theater as well as bad living.

In plain words he didn’t want to turn into just another old fart, and neither do I. (I.e., an older person, typically male, who holds “old-fashioned views.”) By the way, that Free Dictionary definition has a disclaimer, that the page “may contain content that is offensive or inappropriate for some readers.” To which I would say, “Get over it, Nancy!”

And speaking of old farts, Steinbeck was 60 years old when he wrote Travels, including that stuff about Old Age. To which I would say, “Punk! And young punk at that!” (Oh to be 60 again… Not!)

But we were talking about 150-mile hikes in foreign countries, and why an old guy would still do them. Partly because they are pilgrimages, giving us a break from “real life,” from the rat race. That last part doesn’t really apply to me; I’m retired and can enjoy life. But as we started to say on the Way of St. Francis last year, “It sure beats playing bingo at the Senior Center!” Aside from that, a pilgrimage can be “‘one of the most liberating of personal experiences.” And on a Camino hike that hot shower, warm bed and cold beer at the end of each day helps too.

Beyond that, I wouldn’t want to be guilty of Bad Theater. Then too, my brother Tom – one hiking companion next September – reacted to a past-pilgrimage blog-post and had this to say:

Read your blog on the trip and I think there is one point where you give [undue] credence to the view of the “pat-pat” people of the world. The issue is the idea that only people, “not in their right minds,” would go to places (or do things) that are unique experiences – ones that most others never have. In my mind, this is exactly what people in their right mind should be doing. I pity those who don’t.

Which mirrors what Stevenson said in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. (On his 12-day, 120-mile solo hike through sparsely populated, impoverished Cévennes in south-central France.) He described one night setting up camp in a place “black as a pit, but admirably sheltered.” He ate a crude dinner – a tin of bologna and some cake, washed down by brandy – then settled in, despite the tempest around him. As he put it, “The wind among the trees was my lullaby.” He woke in the morning “surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been … even in this tempestuous weather.” He then waxed poetic, in part about seeking such adventure all his life:

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

On a Camino hike today you focus, you concentrate solely on getting up in the morning and reaching that day’s down-the-road destination. On how good the fresh-squeezed orange juice and Café Crème taste now, and how good that first cold beer at the end of the day’s hike will taste. You are mindful. You experience the eternal now. In plain words you don’t give a rat’s ass about the future and what problems it might bring. That in itself is liberating.

These days we have plenty of future to worry about. (Things that might happen but hopefully won’t.) So it’s rewarding to take a break from the nowaday sleepless nights and concentrate on reaching today’s destination, everything you own on your back, and looking forward to that hot shower, warm bed and cold beer. Or it could come down to this basic lesson in life: “To have a mountaintop experience, you have to climb the &^*@$# mountain!”

I dread the day when I have no more mountains to climb…

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The upper image is courtesy of Jeff Dunham Walter – Image Results. Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist with puppet characters including “Walter.” See Walter | Jeff dunham Wiki | Fandom: “Walter is a retired, grumpy old man with arms always crossed in discontent… He has a brash, negative and often sarcastic view on today’s world.” For a live version see Some of the Best of Walter | JEFF DUNHAM – YouTube, about “your favorite opinionated, gray-haired grump in the trunk.”

Re: Curmudgeon. Per Wiktionary, an ill-tempered person, usually old, full of stubborn opinions or ideas.

Re: “Nancy.” I was thinking of “walk it off Nancy,” something like “rub some dirt on it” in a sport setting. Meaning to “be strong,” “be tough” or “stop complaining,” as when you suffer and injury. See also Urban Dictionary: Negative Nancy, referring to a killjoy, someone constantly negative about everything in life, and also referring to “Nancy boy” as an effete male. Or someone “uncomfortable in their own skin,” in the world around them or with social situations around them. Who knew?

Re: Stevenson’s book, considered a “pioneering classic of outdoor literature.” See also my post On donkey travel – and sluts.

The lower image is courtesy of Mountaintop Experience – Image Results. See also I’ve Been to the Mountaintop – Wikipedia.

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This post presents the second half of my account of paddl[ing] across the Okefenokee!

In Part One I wrote about finally bisecting the Okefenokee Swamp, eight long years after I first got the idea. I wanted to paddle a kayak – or canoe – all the way across, from east to west. From the east entrance at the Suwannee Canal Recreation Area, near Folkston, then from the west entrance at Foster State Park, near Fargo, Georgia. And “meet in the middle.*”

Part One included background, like how I got so fascinated by the Swamp in the first place. It went on to describe my brother Tom and I starting the trip. We put in at the SCRA east entrance last February 14, a Tuesday. (And Valentine’s Day.) We made it down to Monkey Lake camping shelter. But that Tuesday is pretty much as far as I got in the post. I told of the first day’s paddling, and how I “slooshed” the dinner dishes that night, leaning over into the water. (With an eye out for lurking gators, lest I be “surprised”) And of closing the day with a shot or two of O-be-joyful, which itself has a fair amount of American historical precedent.

Briefly, in my first attempt in 2015 – paddling an eight-foot kayak, towing a small “tag-along” rubber dinghy – I got as far west as Coffee Bay shelter. In my second try – in the same kayak and tag-along – I made it as far east as the Canal Run shelter. For this last try Tom and I each had a canoe, which gave us a lot more room for traveling supplies. My goal – at least – was to close that wide gap between the Coffee Bay and Canal Run shelters.

And with that, to finally say I’d paddled all the way across the Okefenokee, east to west.

Moving on, to Wednesday, February 15 – On this second day of the trip we paddled the seven water miles from Monkey Lake back up to the Cedar Hammock shelter. That’s the shelter where I camped, alone, eight years before, my first overnight trip into the Swamp. We saw a local gator lurking, looking for handouts, but I doubt it was the same one I’d seen back in 2015. Plus, back in 2015 I had a small “two-man” tent, along with a camp chair and two beers in a cooler. But the mosquitoes were so bad – that 2015 October – that I didn’t get a chance to enjoy the camp chair much. I had to retreat to that tiny tent way early in the evening.

This time I had a new, bigger “six-person” tent. Big enough to fit a cot, camp chair and all my five days’ supplies inside. Also on that Wednesday paddle up from Monkey Lake, Tom tried paddling while standing up in the canoe. I never tried that; for much-needed “butt breaks” I’d paddle while kneeling in the bottom of the canoe. Incidentally, the next Thursday, February 16, paddling over to Canal Run, we saw a guy coming the other way. He paddled standing up, with his long white hair and long white beard. He and the canoe looked “as one,” as if it was a part of him. And they both looked like they’d been in the Swamp a long, long time.

Which brings up a word about the Okefenokee type of swamp. The Suwanee Canal – where we started on Tuesday and spent all day Saturday on, heading back – runs through the swamp, east to northwest. It’s lined with lots of trees – cypress, mostly – along with downed trees, underbrush and lots of developed “trembling earth.” (Okefenokee means “Trembling Earth.”)

Along the Suwanee Canal there there are some places to stop and get out, if you check those places carefully and wear rubber boots. (At least up to the knees.) But most of the rest of the swamp – including the way up from Monkey Lake – is made up of “prairies.” Unlike the Canal and its tree-lined banks, the prairies offer no place to stop for a butt-break. (Unless you stand up in your canoe.) And they have nothing to block the wind.

We learned that lesson on a windy Thursday, February 16. We “played bumper cars.” The wind bounced us from one side of the eight-foot channel to the other. (And tangled us up in water lilies, small bushes or swamp muck.) The prairies also have lots of swamp grass, for lack of a better term. It looks very dry, even though it’s rooted in water – and that muck. But the gators love it; they love to sun themselves on the matted-up grass that lines most prairie channels.

Thursday, February 16 – This was our first long day, 11 miles paddling to get up to the Round Top shelter. Probably for that reason I didn’t write anything in my journal that evening, after our first day of paddling 11 miles. (Instead of the previous seven miles each, Tuesday and Wednesday.) But that gap gives me a chance to explore the issue, Why? “Why would anyone in his right mind paddle into the Okefenokee Swamp for five days?”

I offered some ideas in March 2015’s “I pity the fool!” Starting with a combo-quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mr. T: “I pity the fool who doesn’t do pilgrimages and otherwise push the envelope,” even at the ripe old age of 71. (In my case.) Also in my case, a quote from when I paddled my kayak miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, to achieve some much-needed closure:

Every once in a while I’d pause, turn off my stop-watch and just enjoy the feeling “of being somewhere, someplace that no one else in his right mind would ever be.” I imagine the explorers back in the olden days had something of the same feeling.

I had other quotes from Emerson and John Steinbeck, on how most people give up and slow down as they age. (While a limited, feisty few don’t.) But maybe the best answer came from our hike on the Way of St. Francis 2022. We’d say, “It beats playing Bingo at the Senior Center!” 

Back to Friday, February 17 – Our original plan for today was another 11-mile paddle, ending up over at the Canal Run shelter. The actual distance from Round Top shelter to Canal Run would make a very short day, so we planned a scenic detour. We’d paddle up to Floyd’s Island and then back down to Canal Run. But some time on Thursday afternoon – paddling those 11 miles – we came up with a Plan B. “The heck with Floyd Island, let’s just paddle straight over to Canal Run.” (“Straight” being relative, as in “relatively straight.”)

I say “relatively” because the National Geographic map shows open water straight west from Round Top over to Canal Run. But the touristy canoe trail – the one you’re supposed to use – shunts way up to the northwest, then trickles back down southwest. (Effectively doubling the paddle-time.) But since discretion is the better part of valor – so they say – we decided to follow the boring canoe trail. Which turned out to be not so boring, and brings up the fact that it’s actually pretty hard to get lost in the Okefenokee. The Suwanee Canal is well marked, as are the canoe trails leading off from it. (Mostly, except for one exception detailed in the notes.) 

In other news, tonight the local gator at Canal Run got a bit too close, so Tom whacked him on the head with a paddle. He still hung around, but stayed just out of paddle-whacking distance.

Saturday, February 18 – This morning came after the coldest night of the trip. It got down to 38 degrees. I had the same sleeping bag I used canoeing 440 miles down the Yukon River,* but it was still hard to sleep. In the morning, first getting up, I stumbled around like the proverbial drunken sailor. I wasn’t drunk. My feet were just that numb from 12 hours of cold. But we started that cold morning knowing that at the end of the day we’d have a hot shower, a cold beer and a warm bed to look forward to. (“Straight” down the Suwanee Canal.)

This was the second-longest day, 10 miles from Canal Run back to the SCRA east entrance.

We made it to the Coffee Bay shelter for lunch, and there ran across a Scout troop. Five adults and seven teenage boys, with lots of horse-assing around. (By the teenage boys.) They eventually left, but we kept running into them on the way back. The last time was almost back to the SCRA take-out. As shown in the picture at the top of the page, that’s where two young Scouts managed to capsize their canoe. This was 15 or 20 minutes after I’d taken the picture of the gator shown at the bottom of the page. (15 or 20 minutes earlier, I think.)

But Tom paddled over and helped them get back in. (With no appearance from the local gator who I’ve heard hangs around SCRA waters.) Incidentally – and on that note – it was only a day or two after we got back that I read about the 85-year-old woman killed in an alligator attack at a Florida golf course. (I’m glad I didn’t read that before we started.)

But seriously, that brings up the question: “How did the Okefenokee get such a lousy reputation?” Is it a Haven of Serenity or a “Deadly Swamp?” Some Okefenokee devotees “swear by its ability to envelope visitors in a haven of serenity.” So there are devotees of the Swamp, and I count myself one of them. I found it a haven of serenity, even with the gators, mosquitoes, and butt-numbing paddling. But offsetting that was the peace and quiet, and a chance to get away from the phone and internet agitations that are so big a part of modern life. Then too:

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

Which is pretty much what I found, paddling away for hours in the quiet marsh. My mind “occupied and composed,” so much so that I wasn’t annoyed by future problems. Or by the problems of our “now” outside world for that matter. (The quote is in 2015’s “I pity the fool,” from Robert Louis Stevenson‘s 1879 book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.) 

On the other hand there’s the negative image from that 1941 movie Swamp Water. I’ve noted how watching it back when I was 11 or 12 got me so fascinated by The Swamp in the first place. Especially watching in horror the scene where Walter Brennan gets bitten in the face by a smiling, evil-looking Cottonmouth. And I think a lot of the Okefenokee’s bad reputation stems from that movie. So “what I’m gonna did” – as Justin Wilson used to say – is review that movie in my next post. I’ll also explore how “Hollywood” can often distort reality.

In the meantime, I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment now that I’ve finally paddled across the Okefenokee, east to west. I’ve crossed that off my Bucket List. (Gators and all.)

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I took the picture at the top of the page. The “scout overboard” incident happened the last of five days canoeing around the Okefenokee. Also, for this post I borrowed from past posts like Getting back up to speed – for canoeing and Another paddling adventure – January ’23. And it all started in 2015 with Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee:”

“Meet in the middle.” Coming from the west, to get to the shelter I’d reached heading in from the east.

Re:  “Two-man” tent. I put the term in quotes because one person can barely fit into a two-person tent. As far as the “six-person” tent, Tom and I shared mine after his tent got trashed by the 80-mph windstorm on the Missouri River. It was a tight squeeze with two people, along with their cots.

Re: The second (2016) trip in, to the CANAL RUN shelter, nine miles in from Foster State Park. Among other things I saw 50 alligators in the first hour of paddling. After that I stopped counting.

“O-be-joyful” is a code-word for ardent spirits. We brothers – originally four of us – started packing samples in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT. That was a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers. Back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be.

Re: “Trembling earth.” See Floating Peat Islands: The Land of Trembling Earth: “Methane gas under decomposed organic peat causes peat blowups, forming mud peat batteries where herbs and grasses grow. Okefenokee means trembling earth, because of these peat islands.” The article quoted a book on the Swamp, with its “mass of floating vegetable forms, intermingled with moss drift and slime.” The mass formed a “compact floor,” capable of sustaining one character’s weight. But he saw that although the mass “did not at once break through beneath him, could be seen to sink and rise at every step for twenty feet around.”

Re: 2015’s “I pity the fool!” I’ll be updating it after my next post, a review of Swamp Water.  

Re: “Mostly,” as “detailed in the notes.” And on it being hard to get lost in The Swamp. It’s well marked, including the canoe trails that go off from Suwanee Canal. But there was one time when we got near the Suwanee Canal, heading to Canal Run. It looked like the powers-that-be had cut off access to the shelter I was aiming for, “just to piss me off.” I paddled a ways up past the “area closed” sign but didn’t see any way through. When I got back Tom had checked his map, always a good thing to do. The lesson? In my case don’t over-react and assume people are out to piss you off for no good reason. And by the way, I kept this out of the main text in the interest of UCC, “that unity and coherence crap.” My family tells me my writing “goes all over the place,” and I’m trying to fix that. Also, the episode was mostly just embarrassing to me, though it did provide a bit of extra exercise.

Re: Canoeing 440 miles on the Yukon River. See for example, “Naked lady on the Yukon.” For another canoe adventure, this time in Canada, see “Naked Lady” – on the Rideau Canal?

The Okefenokee quote about its being a “haven of serenity” is from an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, February 5, 2023, page B5. My brother Bill gave me that story a week or so before I left to head down to Folkston.  

Re: Alligator attack. For further reading see An alligator killed a Florida woman. It doesn’t happen often, but here’s what to do if a gator attacks. Among the nuggets of wisdom: “Predators want easy meals, not battles.” Adult humans are normally considered too big for an alligator, but “a child or small animal — those they’re going to want to go for.” Also, “the sound of dogs playing or barking can actually attract alligators to an area.”

Re: “Donkey in the Cevennes.” Our next big adventure, coming up this September 2023, is hiking the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail … in France. See also GR 70 – Wikipedia. We’ll travel without the donkey.

Re: Hollywood distorting reality. Google “hollywood distort reality,” or see 6 Ways Movies Subtly Distort Reality | Mental Floss, or A Few of the Many Ways We Distort Reality | Psychology Today.

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My last two posts* talked about Finishing Some Unfinished Business. The unfinished business was paddling a kayak – or canoe – all the way across the Okefenokee Swamp, from east to west. I first got the idea of doing that back in early 2015. It took awhile – eight years in fact – but just this past February 2023 I finally got to say, “Mission Accomplished!”

But first I need to apologize. It’s been over a month since I last posted, on Getting “ready, for the Okefenokee.” And we finished the job on February 18, well over three weeks ago. But since I’ve “mission accomplished” – and so likely won’t be going back into the Swamp again – I wanted to make this my magnum opus on the subject. And to explain why anyone in his right mind would go into such a place. A Swamp that’s been called “sinister,” “mysterious,” and full of lurking dangers beneath those seemingly tranquil waters. (Gators, cottonmouths and the like.)

As explained in 2015’s Operation Pogo, it all started when I was 10 or 12 – I’m 71 now – and saw the movie Swamp Water. (That would be back in the early 1960s.) In one scene I watched in horror as Walter Brennan got bitten on the cheek by a smiling – and sinister – water moccasin. (As he knelt over to part some bulrushes and get a drink, of “swamp water.”)

I’ve been fascinated ever since…

I suppose it’s a matter of “that which horrifies us also fascinates us.” (Kind of like how I used to feel about visiting New York City.) But back to the subject at hand…

My first time in was a simple day trip in September 2015. I paddled in from the east, with no supplies. The trip took about two hours. I just wanted to get a feel for speed, to see how long it might take to cover the water miles from east to west. Based on that limited first outing, I thought I could bisect the Swamp in two overnight trips. (One from the east entrance and one from the west.) That didn’t happen, not for another eight years anyway, and took this year’s extra five-day trip. But as it turns out, if you can paddle two miles in an hour, you’re doing good.

My first real try came weeks later, in October 2015. I put in at the Suwanee Canal Recreation Area (SCRA). I had the same kayak, with a “tagalong.” (A small rubber dinghy, towed and holding camping supplies and cooler, complete with two cold beers.) Unfortunately, that time of year is popular, so most platforms were already reserved. The only shelter available was Cedar Hammock, a mere three miles in from the SCRA. Paddling to Cedar Hammock didn’t take long, so I headed down toward Monkey Lake, for exercise. But I had to turn around early and paddle back to Cedar Hammock, in the dark. (Complete with slews of grabby water lilies to paddle through.) The second day I made it as far west as the Coffee Bay day shelter. (No camping allowed.) Bottom line: I didn’t make much bisecting progress on that first trip. 

Then in June 2016 I kayaked in from the west side. I put in at Stephen C. Foster State Park, east of Fargo, Georgia. As noted, my original plan was to bisect the Swamp, east to west, and this time I made it to the CANAL RUN shelter I’d reserved. (Nine miles in from Foster State Park.) That was still an all-day paddle, and it still left a big gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay.

But finally, last February 2023 and eight years after my first attempt, I closed the gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay. I had finally bisected the dreaded Okefenokee Swamp.

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I never let the dream die, even as years passed. Then came a boost from my brother.

Last September (2022), Tom, his wife Carol and I hiked 150 miles on the Way of St. Francis, in Italy. Somewhere hiking in the Appennine Mountains I mentioned this “Unfinished Business.” (Possibly over a cold beer at the end of a long day’s hike.) A bit to my surprise, Tom expressed interest, possibly at the prospect of enjoying a break from “icy arctic blasts” such a part of winters in Massachusetts. We settled on a tentative date, in mid-February 2023.

The result was a plan to take five days, using Tom’s two canoes, instead of one eight-foot kayak. (Towing a rubber-dinghy tagalong.) I’ve done two earlier posts* on preparing for the trip, and closed the last one saying, “I’ll keep you posted.” So, here’s that final report.

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For starters, on Monday February 13, we met up at the Newell Lodge, northeast of Folkston. As it turned out, Folkston was halfway between the Lodge and the east entrance (SCRA). That night we packed up what we could. I had my last shower and last cold beer until the following Saturday. Four nights without a beer or shower. Not a real shower anyway; I brought along some Dude Shower Wipes. (One of many alternatives, I just learned via internet.)

The next morning, Tuesday, February 14, we put in at the SCRA boat ramp about 10:30. Our goal for the day was Monkey Lake shelter, seven miles away. (The Monkey Lake I tried to reach back in 2015.) Along the Suwanee Canal, and up until the turnoff to Monkey Lake, we played paddle-tag with a boat full of tourists, complete with a guide yakking on a bull horn. He’d stop and talk awhile and we’d pass him, then he’d motor by and get up ahead of us, then stop again. It was annoying in a way, but we heard some gems along the way. Once he pointed out the plentiful Spanish moss lining the Canal, and said that such “moss” is related to pineapples. (?)

We got to Monkey Lake by 3:30, after five hours on the water. (With breaks and a short Lunchables lunch.) Two breaks involved standing up in the canoes. Very carefully. (I call them “butt breaks” because paddling five hours without changing position really gets to you.) At the shelter we first unloaded the canoes, then set up our tents. For supper – the one hot meal of a typical canoeing day – we had hot dogs and baked beans, with crackers and a fruit cup dessert. After that I washed the dishes and enjoyed a shot or two of “O-be-joyful.”

Which brings up a word about “washing those dishes.”

The first step involves “slooshing” the sticky stuff off plates, pans and dinnerware, followed by a real wash and rinse with hot water from the camp stove. And two of the shelter platforms were heavy-duty plastic going all the way down into the water. But the other two, Monkey Lake and Canal Run, were raised wooden decks. They left a gap between the bottom of the deck and the water, and with my active imagination I could just see a gator lurking underneath that deck. (Attracted by the slooshing and food particles.) Nothing ever happened, thankfully. On the other hand, I did “sloosh” those dishes very quickly on the two wooden-deck camping platforms.

That gap between the water and bottom of the deck reminded me of my 2016 second trip in. Because it was so early in the season, the canoe-only trails were much vegetated-over. Which meant that many times I had to “butt-scootch” the kayak over a barely-sunken log. Sometimes I also had to stick my hand out, grab another branch and finish pulling the kayak over. The last time I reached my left hand out I saw a patch of white.  It turned out to be a gator – a small one, but a gator – “smiling” nicely at what he thought was a tasty snack.

That memory came back as I slooshed the dinner dishes at Monkey Lake camping shelter.

But, dishes done and O-be-joyful enjoyed, that first day ended with dusk and a chill setting in at 6:15. I’d brought along a head lamp, and stayed up – in the tent, away from the mosquitoes – reading and also writing in a journal. I actually sat in my camp chair, beside the cot, inside the tent. That brings up the fact that I love my new bigger “six-person” tent. Even with its bent support-pole, courtesy of an 80-mile-an-hour windstorm on the Missouri River back in 2020.

We retreated to our tents that early the next three nights as well; in our cots and at least trying to sleep for the next 11 or 12 hours. Much different than my daily routine back home.

Also different from my daily routine back home: Seeing so many alligators sunning themselves on the banks of the Suwanee Canal, and also in those Okefenokee “prairies.” But my magnum opus is getting way too long for one post, so I’ll have to continue it in a “Part Two.”  

In that Part Two I’ll describe the last three days of our Okefenokee adventure. That will include the climax – the denourment if you will – of the trip: Where a canoe with two Scouts in it capsized, not far from where I photographed this gator. Stay tuned!

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I took the picture at the top of the page. The “scout overboard” incident happened on the last of our five days canoeing around the Okefenokee. Also, for this post I borrowed from past posts including Getting back up to speed – for canoeing and Another paddling adventure – January ’23. And it all pretty much started in 2015 with Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee” and following.

The descriptive terms “sinister” and “mysterious” came from the cover of the Swamp Water DVD I just got from a local library, based on the original movie poster.  

Re: Cottonmouths. See Agkistrodon piscivorus – Wikipedia, on the “pit viper in the subfamily Crotalinae of the family Viperidae … one of the world’s few semiaquatic vipers … and is native to the southeastern United States. As an adult, it is large and capable of delivering a painful and potentially fatal bite.” I didn’t see a single cottonmouth in any of my four excursions.

Re: The Canal. “The Suwannee Canal was dug across the swamp in the late 19th century in a failed attempt to drain the Okefenokee. After the Suwannee Canal Company’s bankruptcy, most of the swamp was purchased by the Hebard family of Philadelphia, who conducted extensive cypress logging operations from 1909 to 1927.” Okefenokee Swamp – Wikipedia.

Re: Tom’s two canoes. The same canoes we used for the the July 2020 trip down the Missouri River. (Sioux City to Omaha.) See On my “new” Missouri River canoe trip. Apparently I never did a post-mortem on that trip, even though it featured us surviving an 80-mph windstorm that obliterated Tom’s tent, and left my tent with a fractured support-pole that I had to repair with a lot of duct tape. The COVID outbreak had just started, so the post included a lot of detail about how to stay healthy on the up to and back from the trip. We used the same canoes for a trip from Kingston Ontario up to Ottowa in 2018. See The “Rideau Adventure” – An Overview.

Some nuggets about Spanish moss. It has been used as building insulation, mulch, packing material, mattress stuffing, and fiber. In the early 1900s it was used commercially in the padding of car seats. In the desert regions of southwestern United States, dried Spanish moss is sometimes used in the manufacture of evaporative coolers, “colloquially known as ‘swamp coolers.'” Wikipedia. See also The Antioxidant Benefits of Spanish Moss – WholisticMatters.

Re: The second (2016) trip in, to the CANAL RUN shelter, nine miles in from Foster State Park. Among other things I saw fifty alligators during the first hour of paddling. After that I stopped counting.

“O-be-joyful” is a code-word for ardent spirits. We brothers – originally four of us – started packing samples in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT. That was a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers. Back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be.

I also took the Gator picture at the bottom of the main text. But he was a good mile or so away from the capsized canoe. (I’m pretty sure…)

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I started working on this blog-post on Saturday night, February 11, 2023.

Which is part of what is shaping up as a busy weekend. One part came earlier today when I started packing up the basics for my next paddling adventure, a five-day canoe trip into the Okefenokee Swamp. Tomorrow will be even busier. I have to be at church by 9:00 a.m., for a special meeting, then take my sweetheart to lunch after church. Then I get to finish whatever packing I can do, aside from last-minute stuff on Monday morning. Then I’m heading to a Super Bowl party in Stockbridge. (Riding with a friend, so by the time I get back to his house I’ll be “sober as a judge,” fit to drive back to my house.) Then – as early as possible on Monday morning – I’ll drive down to Folkston GA to meet up with my brother and his two canoes.

Then on Tuesday, the 14th, we’ll head into the Okefenokee for those five days of canoeing.

As I started packing up – and otherwise getting ready – past canoe-adventure memories started coming back. That actually started last Thursday when I put up my alleged “six-person” tent. The one I used in the last canoe trip we did, which I previewed in On my “new” Missouri River canoe trip. The July 2020 canoe trip in which I survived an 80-mile-an-hour windstorm that ruined my brother’s tent, and snapped a hold-it-up fiberglass pole for my tent.

You can see the proposed (preview) of the trip in the “new” Missouri post, but one thing we didn’t count on was that 80-mile-an-hour windstorm. It happened on the Iowa side of the river, and my job last Thursday included sweeping out the river-bank sand from so long ago. For some reason I didn’t do a follow-up post on that trip. But my journal from 2020 noted the “[stuff] hit the fan,” the night it happened, from 1:10 a.m. to 1:50 a.m. That’s when I thought “my time had come,” pinned to my cot as I was for 40 long minutes by the front part of my tent. As the wind whirled around us, tore off the tent flap designed to keep rain out, and otherwise blew all kinds of equipment hither and yon. Next morning, a Sunday, July 12, 2020, we “picked up the pieces.” The first thing we noticed, No canoes! Or at least not where we left them, tied up so carefully to tree branches high up on the bank.

But not high enough, as it turned out.

We did find the canoes, eventually. One was sunk in the river, or practically so, up to the “gunnels,” about 20 feet out. The other was downstream, tightly lodged in some dead tree parts piled up on the bank. And not only did we find the canoes, and paddles, we managed to paddle the remaining 25 miles to Omaha, where that trip ended. (With a steak dinner and two beers.)

Which brings us back to my next adventure, and some more good news. As I found out last Thursday, wiith the judicious use of duct tape, that snapped tent pole can still hold my tent up for the trip into the Okefenokee. (Even though I had to duct tape one joint together, so the dismantled segments don’t fit neatly together in their bag like they used to.)

Then too, the ritual of putting up the tent – then taking it back down again – brought back some memories from past canoe trips started. Like each morning having to dismantle the tent the same way, together with the swanky cot I got for that last trip, not to mention the ordeal of stuffing all that into their respective storage bags. And the regular morning breakfast of lukewarm coffee and one and a half breakfast bars.

Then memories came of later in the day, after paddling a canoe for hours – the best part – of having to set up the tent, cot and other camping gear. Followed by the one hot meal of the day, then my “slooshing” out the dinner pans and dishes, then washing and rinsing them in the water boiled nicely on the Coleman stove. (By custom, my brother cooks and I do the dishes.)

Followed by some prophylactic swallows of O-be-joyful.

I’ll do a follow-up post once I get back. (The plan is to drive home Sunday, the 19th.) Hopefully with tales of relaxing days canoeing in the peaceful Okefenokee, with chirping birds and alligators who mind their own business. But for a review of our last canoe trip before the one with the 80-mile-an-hour windstorm, see The “Rideau Adventure” – An Overview, from September 2018. But before that I did a preview in Next adventure: Paddling the Rideau “Canal,” from July 18, 2018, and later that month – July 31 – “Naked Lady” – on the Rideau Canal? Here’s a heads up: I didn’t see any naked ladies on the Rideau Canal in Canada in 2018. But come to think of it, we did go through some severe weather on that trip too, paddling to Colonel By Island 

That overnight campsite included a violent rainstorm and raccoons breaking into our plastic food containers and taking our supplies of breakfast bars, crackers and trail mix.  That in turn was preceded by us paddling through a veritable monsoon, on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 21[, 2018].

And that’s why they call it adventuring. As in an “enterprise of a hazardous nature,” or preferably, an “unusual or exciting experience.” Or maybe just relaxing? Either way, Wish me luck!

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The upper image is courtesy of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – Image Results. From the article, National Wildlife Refuge System celebrates 114th birthday. 

“Alleged six-person tent.” It seems tent sizes are always overstated. After the 80-mph windstorm my brother shared the tent with me, a combination of two people, and it was a really tight squeeze.

“O-be-joyful” is a code-word for ardent spirits. We brothers – originally four of us – started packing samples in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT. That was a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers. Back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be. It’s in that spirit that I take some “O be joyful” along on such trips. As in “I just had my fifth swallow of ‘Oh be joyful,’” and then, “Which helps a lot.”

The lower image is courtesy of Swamp Water – Wikipedia.  That article describes the “1941 film directed by Jean Renoir, starring Walter Brennan and Walter Huston, produced at 20th Century Fox, and based on the novel by Vereen Bell.  The film was shot on location at Okefenokee Swamp, Waycross, Georgia, USA.  This was Renoir’s first American film.  The movie was remade in 1952 as Lure of the Wilderness, directed by Jean Negulesco.” 

Here’s what I wrote about the film in 2105, in Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee:”

I saw the movie Swamp Water back in the early 1960s.   (When I  was around 10 or 12.)  The part I remember best was watching Walter Brennan getting bitten in the face by a snake. In the scene, he kneels over and parts the bullrushes to get a drink… As Walter does all that, the viewer can see a grinning cottonmouth off to his right. (The viewer’s left.) The grinning cottonmouth then proceeds to bite him “right on the cheek.”

I’ve been fascinated ever since…

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January 29, 2023 – I just ran across a post from March 2019, on a kayaking misadventure back in 2013.

I called it On a 2013 kayaking “adventure” and what brought it to mind was a new venture coming up next month. My brother and I are planning a five-day canoe trip into the Okefenokee Swamp. I’ve already camped overnight twice in the Okefenokee, in a small kayak, but they were solo journeys. (See Remembering the Okefenokee, and links therein.) But this trip will feature two separate, large canoes, not one 8-foot kayak, trailing a small rubber dinghy. (“Tagalong.”)

I’ll have more on the Swamp trip later, but first a word about the 2013 misadventure.

I had just bought the eight-foot kayak, after getting back from canoeing 12 miles off the coast of Mississippi. (An eight-day primitive camping trip, as in “dig a hole and squat.”) But I hadn’t gotten too well acquainted with it yet. For example, I didn’t know about the drain plug. And so the post started out, “There I was, in the middle of a local lake around here, on a fine sunny summer afternoon. I was happily paddling away in my spandy-new kayak, when suddenly…“

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It was only my third time paddling the kayak. I had put in at Lake Kedron, and getting in a kayak is always awkward. But this time it tipped over a bit too far to the side, so once I got in I noticed what seemed like a small bit of water sloshing around. But I didn’t want to go through the whole process of getting out, emptying the water and then getting back in. I figured, “No problem, I’ll just put up with water sloshing around a bit until I finish,” in an hour or so.  So I paddled out, then turned around and headed back when I noticed what seemed a bit more water.

I kept paddling, and in a bit glanced back and noticed the back end seemed much lower. That’s when I discovered a big difference between a kayak and canoe. I couldn’t twist around to get a good view of the back end, which led me to this: “You know, I’ll bet there’s a drain plug somewhere on this kayak. I wonder where it is? I’ll have to check the instructions when I get back.”

To make a long story short, I ended up in a reverse-Titanic. (Titanic sank bow first. The kayak sank stern first.) And while it was a bit humiliating – the lakes in that area are all surrounded by homes – it didn’t turn out that bad. You can see the gory details in a 2013 kayaking, but here’s a final note. I sent out an email to family members, and my oldest brother – not the one I share travel adventures with – had this reply: “I don’t think I would have shared that.”

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So anyway, back to that other adventure, upcoming, the one into the Okefenokee.

Back in October 2015 I kayaked into the Okefenokee from east side, using the same kayak. I put in at the Suwanee Canal Recreation Area (SCRA). Then in June 2016 I kayaked in from the west side, where I started at the Stephen C. Foster State Park east of Fargo, Georgia. My original plan for these trips was to bisect the Swamp, east to west. However, in October 2015 the only camping shelter available was at Cedar Hammock. Unfortunately, that was a mere three miles in from the SCRA entrance, so I couldn’t make much bisecting progress.

Still, the next day I made it as far as Coffee Bay day shelter. Then in 2016 I made it to the CANAL RUN shelter, some nine miles in from Foster State Park. That was still an all-day paddle, and still left a big gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay. But next month, with two canoes and five days to paddle, we should make it from the east entrance to Canal Run, by way of Round Top shelter. And that’s not to mention “by way of” Monkey Lake.* (Finally getting down there.) That’s the plan anyway, to bisect the Okefenokee at last. I’ll keep you posted…

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All of which leads in to another travel adventure. This one is coming up next fall, and was possibly “preordained before the beginning of time.” Or at least foreshadowed in the post, On canoeing 12 miles offshore, from May 2015. It talked about Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1879 book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. And about why he would do such a foolish thing as embarking on a “12-day, 120-mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France in 1878.” His answer:

I had been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random nook in Gevaudan – not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth…

And such is the nature of pilgrimages. They give us a break from “real life,” from the rat race that consumes so many today. Which is why they can be described as “religious ritual on the move.” Through the raw experience of hunger, cold and lack of sleep, “we can quite often find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings.’” Put another way, such a pilgrimage can be “one of the most chastening,” but also one of the most liberating of personal experiences.

In case I’m being too subtle, after the canoe trip into the Okefenokee, my next great travel adventure will be this fall of 2023, hiking the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in France. (With my travel brother and his wife.) Which again raises the question – for some anyway – “Why would anyone your age want to do that?” For a good answer check out John Steinbeck, who based his 1960 book Travels with Charley on Stevenson’s In the Cévennes travelog.

In Charley he noted many men his age – he was 58 at the time; I turn 72 this year – who are told to “slow down.” In turn they “pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.” But that wasn’t Steinbeck’s way:

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage…  If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway.  I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage.  It’s bad theater as well as bad living.

Or as we used to say hiking the Way of St. Francis, “it sure beats playing bingo at the Senior Center!”

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The upper image is courtesy of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – Image Results. See also Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The “misadventure” link formerly included that add-on, “(blub, blub, blub).”

About Monkey Lake, and the Cedar Hammock shelter. In the October 2015 trip I paddled in to Cedar Hammock and checked it out, but since it was still early in the day I decided to padde down to Monkey Lake. And that’s where I went head-to-head with a big bull gator in a narrow canal, complete with two “bumps” that prompted me to paddle much faster. Here’s what I wrote a bit later:

I saw a big bull gator – who eventually submerged – in a very narrow canal. This was on the canoe trail to Monkey Lake. As I paddled over the water where the gator had been, I could swear he came up and nudged the bottom of my kayak.  I figured it was an accident. But the second time? That added some spice to the trip.

I turned around before Monkey Lake, and got back to Cedar Hammock way after dark. (See “Into the Okefenokee” – Part III.) I ended up paddling, in the dark, through a slew of water lilies, which led to: “That Monet guy can take his stinkin’ water lilies and ‘stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine.’”

Stevenson Trail. It’s also known as the GR 70 – see Wikipedia – or the Chemin de Stevenson.

The lower image is courtesy of Robert Louis Stevenson Trail – Walking in France. See also a post from my companion blog, On donkey travel – and sluts. A side note: Stevenson’s use of the word slut was grammatically correct at the time:

Slut first appeared in the written language in 1402, according to the Oxford English Dictionary…   At that time, slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also apparently meant “kitchen maid” (”She is a cheerful slut who keeps the pots scrubbed and the fires hot.”).

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