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Feb. 22, 2007 They were clearing the lot across the street from my house. The constant grinding sounds of heavy machinery and chainsaws stressed me out, and I fantasized walking over there, shooting the workers, and ending the noise pollution. I honestly wondered if I could get away with it. Would the police even question me? Would they match my shoes with the prints left in the barren soil that used to support a woods of pine and oak? Rather than risk a lengthy prison term, I looked forward to a family vacation at the Okenfenokee Swamp in the southeast corner of Georgia where I hoped I could enjoy the peaceful tranquility of a natural paradise, the silence only broken by the pleasant sounds of trees swaying in the wind. I'm a big nature lover and have lived in Georgia for over thirty years, but I'd never seen the Okefenokee swamp in person, even though it's only a four hour trip down Highway 1. So with my wife beside me, and my eleven year old daughter and seven year old nephew playing video games in grandma's and grandpa's car which followed us, we left--a multi-generational family excursion guaranteed to be a joyful, aesthetic experience for all. My parents were paying for it as an anniversary present, and my wife had agreed to go a long time ago, although she insisted on a winter trip when the bugs were dead and the reptiles inactive. Highway 1 goes through a rural part of the state with only a few small towns (Swainsboro, Lyons, Vidalia, Baxley, Santa Claus) along the way. The wall-to-wall peanut fields were completely desolate this time of year and when the wind blew, the soil flew away in great big clouds. The cotton fields, though long before harvested, yielded evidence of waste. I could have picked a trash bag of cotton in about twenty minutes in any field from what was leftover. Pecan orchards were so common I wondered why the nuts aren't cheaper. The trees were leafless in the winter, gray-barked and drab as was the scenery during this dead time of year. Some brilliant businessman, whoever owns Santa Claus, Georgia; planted a trailer park right in the middle of a pecan orchard thereby doubling the value of the land. Just think of the return on the investment--nut profit plus rent and if I recall correctly from the brief time I lived in a trailer park, the renters could be nutty themselves, but that's another article. In Vidalia there were onion fields as far as the eye could see. Orderly rows of pine trees--deserts for wildlife--have been planted everywhere as well. There are still some wild areas left, especially alongside the rivers, but there is no wilderness comparable to the Okefenokee which covers six hundred square miles. The trip took longer than expected, and I meant to suggest packed lunches but never got around to it so we were stuck looking for a place to eat. At my age I'm pretty bored with American fast food junk. Unfortunately, the fast food industry has a near monopoly on food outlets in rural parts of America. By the time we reached Waycross, the closest town to the swamp, it was two hours past my lunchtime and I was getting cranky. We didn't know our way around town (Waycross is small but surprisingly spread out) and out of desperation we settled on Krystals. Their hamburgers--if you want to call them that--are tiny pieces of dried out meat served between two soggy buns. Hoo! That's bad eating. The overall quality of hamburgers served by every single fast food chain makes me ashamed to be an American. Finally, we reached a state park on the edge of the Okefenokee. They were doing landscaping around the parking lot, and I was insulted by the grinding noise of chainsaws and heavy machinery. I was disgusted that I'd driven two hundred miles just to hear the same noise pollution as what emanated from next to my house. To enter the park, we had to go through a gift shop or in other words--a tourist trap where they sell such items as twenty dollar t-shirts with pictures of alligators captioned with the words, "bite me," and rocks. The kids had to have the rocks. For four adults and two children admission was seventy dollars. They had a small zoo which is a good idea. With four hundred thousand acres to crawl, gallop, and swim in, most wild animals aren't going to hang around a corner of the park frequented by noisy people, and despite the cold weather, there was a good-sized crowd. The zoo had a hawk, and of course alligators--big ones. The weather was so cold the reptiles wouldn't budge, and I had a hard time convincing my snaggle-toothed nephew that they weren't fake. The otter escaped from his cage and was quite tame, allowing people to pet him. He sniffed my shoe and playfully bit a few other tourists. I don't often refer to animals as cute but this one was. They had a reptile show (an expert held several kinds of snakes and a few small gators), but the black bears were the most impressive exhibit. Bears used to be a common animal. Now, they can practically only be seen inside cages. There were two large ones in separate cages and one was galloping around and climbing trees. The kids weren't impressed--they wanted to go back to the shop and waste more of grandma's money. A drought had left water levels so low that the boat tours were canceled and the only way to see the swamp was to take a slow train ride. This is when my dream of peaceful tranquility in a pristine wilderness died. We rode on the noisy train and all the while the tour guide told me everything I already knew about the swamp over the crackly speaker which blared in my ear. He had an exaggerated, down home, country boy manner of speaking, and he talked of the land of the trembling earth, the old moonshine days, the last Indian massacre in Georgia, and how the wild hogs and deer were ruining the landscaping of the park. Because of the dry weather, the scenery wasn't what I expected. Instead of deep lilly-covered channels of tea-colored water surrounded by Spanish moss-covered cypress trees in a waterworld populated by egrets and herons and ducks, I saw dried up ditches and a rather dull looking woods. The train scared away all the wildlife. Halfway through the train trip, it stopped on an island where there was yet another shop dedicated to ripping off tourists. They did have a facsimile of an old pioneer homestead complete with a nice cabin, some chickens, and a few goats. I was disappointed with how short the boardwalk over the swamp was. I wanted to take a long walk and enjoy the quiet and beauty of nature, but I didn't even get to walk on what little trail they had. My father was cold and in a hurry to go to the hotel, and the kids insisted we go throw away more money in the tourist trap. I don't often miss batchelorhood, but this was one of those times. I did have better luck the next day. In the morning before we left for home I found a free hiking area--a dirt road just outside the park. The road went through a pine flatwoods that had a thick understory of saw palmetto. It was a beautiful sunny day, the cold wind whipping around as if old man winter wanted to remind us it was still February. The upland terrain wasn't the swamp, but it was quiet, devoid of people (not counting us), and we took a nice walk. Back in the van, I looked at the map. Next time, we're going to explore a road that leads to a state park right in the middle of the Okefenokee. Maybe that trip'll be more satisfying to me. ------------ About the author Mark Gelbart: My book, Talk Radio, is a black comedy about a radio talk show host who gets kidnapped and psychologically tortured by a loser. www.mark-gelbart.com Email: agelbart@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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