The Big One.

Yesterday was Michelle's last day here with us before heading back up to MA. We spent the day walking at Caw Caw Park which is just a few miles down the road from our campsite. It's a really beautiful spot and I think Billy saw about a hundred spots he wants to paint. We took tons of photos so I am sure that even if he can't get back there to work on site he can still get something painted from that location. The most amazing thing about Caw Caw is the birds. It is teeming with them and there are seemingly dozens and dozens of species. It creates a pretty exciting background "soundtrack" for your walk. There are also quite a few alligators to be seen in the rice fields. There is a cypress swamp and a hardwood forest as well so it really is a gem of a place to visit. If you really look in the photo posted here you will see a decent sized gator in the water on the lower portion of the pic. He was in semi-stealth mode.



I was able to swim 9 inches away from this gator's face (disguised as a floating log of course) in order to bring THIS photo to you. I risk it all for the purposes of blog photography.


The cypress swamp is my favorite thing so far about the great outdoors in the South. It is so otherworldly. It's hard to really capture a true sense of place in a picture... but here are a few to give you a feel.





After the swamp tour we headed out onto John's Island to see if we could find a really old tree. And I mean REALLY OLD tree. It's called The Angel Oak and it is said to be 1400 years old or so. And... when you see it, it reaches right out and smacks your brains right out of your beanie little head. There is really no way to convey the intense smacking out of the brains that occurs. Although...for once I do think that even just these small photos will kick your brains around just a little bit, right here on the computer screen. I will post one with no peeps in view and then another with peeps just for the sake of perspective.




We really could not even fit the whole tree into the camera lens, even when set on wide angle view. Please note that in the above picture we have A. One smallish boy doing calisthentics near the tree under the casually watchful eye of his personal photographer B. Several people and a large muppet like dog who seem to be somewhat unaware of the tree like they are all "Whatever, I see trees like this in my own back yard so who cares." and C. One person (who happens to bear a strong, uncanny resemblance to me) involved in a deep level of communion with the tree. I find it to be a really fascinating pic. Hope you enjoy as well.