Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Swamps are pretty cool. Except for the dead deer rotting away next to where we parked. That was uncool.

My first swamp guys!




Big change from the high desert where I've been living the last five years. Actually, I guess it's totally different from any place I've ever lived. Best part? We found a nice hut to hang out at when we become hobos.

 

It even came with an area rug. (Insert Lebowski joke here)




Roomie's trying to teach me some of his smartypants stuff. Like how to identify a few birds. Truth be told, I'm pretty terrible at it, because my eyes are so bad, but even people who can't see far away can hear calls and see shapes of large birds at a distance.

Also, did you know that cypress trees have knees? They're stubs of root that grow up out of the swamp around cypress, and they look vaguely phallic and eerily primordial. Most of the ones we saw today had these salmon-colored tips that really upped the tree-ween-of-the-swamp-floor factor.

Gross, right?

Here's a close-up:


Also, we thought Margaux loved the desert, but that's probably just because we'd never taken her to a swamp before. I mean, mud and stink and neck-deep puddles and bugs and dead things? Brackish water you can swim in that's the color of over-steeped tea so you don't know what's at the bottom of the pool and there could be anything down there! Snakes! Sticks! Dirt! More mud!


Sister was in heaven.