Here are our friends, Pete and Suzy, when we crossed into Mississippi and stopped at the Welcome Center to get information on state parks, pick up maps, etc.
Our next stop was at the Gulf Islands Seashores National Park located in Ocean Springs, MS.
We saw wild alligators at this park. This guy was on one side of the bridge and looked like he was posing for us. We wouldn't have known if they were guys or gals but the rangers told us they were guys. Another first - wild alligators.
They are territorial so this guy would be on the other side of a bridge.
The Nat'l Park at Gulf Islands celebrated Earth Day while we were staying there. We were treated to a marsh tour and our skipper was Ranger Mike.
It was interesting to find out the purpose of different heights of the marsh grasses. The water in the marshes and also the rivers in most southern states are brackish (brown and dirty looking). They aren't contaminated but they sure aren't as pretty as the streams in the NW.
We were lucky to see an osprey perched on a branch of a cypress snag. The osprey was feasting on his catch. He had a large fish which I am sure he was careful not to drop.
We were also treated to music by some singing rangers. They had even composed a song especially for Earth Day.
We are continuing to look for indications that the Old Spanish Trail has passed through an area. We found this sign while exploring in Ocean Springs.
We took a day to drive to Alabama (see sign below). We drove through Mobile to Dauphin Island - part of the barrier islands. In some places, this island was only about 200 yards wide. The island was about 7 miles long and we able to go over a bridge to get there. The sand was white and beautiful. As you can see, the houses are built on what looks like stilts. They are raised so the water during storms can go beneath them.
Most of these homes appear to be vacation homes - not permanent residences. We visited this area before the explosion on the oil rig. They are already showing pictures on the news of oil damage to the island.
We saw several different birds like this duck while driving around this island.
This sandhill crane wasn't hanging around for us to get a good picture of him.
The part of Alabama that we crossed during our trip was only 76 miles wide sandwiched between Mississippi and Florida on the gulf coast. Next - Florida.
No comments:
Post a Comment