FDR, Krautrock and Alligators

In the Okefenokee Swamp

FDR made this area a wildlife refuge by a stroke of the pen in 1937. I'm still waiting for Obama to take up his righteous mantle and create some things like that. I wonder if he has a Harry Hopkins, Frances Perkins, Cordell Hull or Bernard Baruch to whisper in his ear? What's that? Geithner? Gates? Hillary? Oh Dear!


"3am At The Border Of The Marsh From Okefenokee" is a track on Tangerine Dream's 1976 album Stratosfear.


I loved the album and liked the swamp even more. You might have missed the Krautrock movement which came out of West Berlin in the early 70s. That's OK...I did too.

A big gator approaches us as we stop for lunch ten miles into the swamp. I throw a crust of bread which lands between his eyes.


I've never suspected that gators are very good at problem solving. This one crosses his eyes and keeps turning and snapping, but can't get at the bread crust on his nose.

Skunk Apes and Swamp Gas

Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia

Here, Mrs. Phred says goodbye to Gordie, Mark and Darwin. They asked her to play doubles with them early Easter morning.

There is one theory that the squadron of lost Navy fighter pilots associated with the Bermuda Triangle may have actually ended up here in the swamp. It's a huge place, about 700 square miles, mostly impassible on foot or by boat.

The green orbs of glowing swamp gas float around everywhere here. They are very annoying and seem to follow us wherever we go.

We spot a red cockaded woodpecker just off the trail pounding on a log. It's an endangered species. You have to wonder about the niche it has selected for itself....looking for bugs by beating apart logs with its nose. The pictures are all blurry. This is the best of the lot. We also spot two skunk apes (both a little over nine feet tall). They smell like a cross between ground pepper and an open sewer. The pictures don't turn out.

Okefenokee Swamp is possibly the most unloved and least visited National Recreation Area.

This is the alien abduction capital of America. The theory is that the lack of roads and people make it a good place to grab the occasional human or cow for closer observation and/or mutilation.

We'll rent a boat today and penetrate the mysterious Okefenokee a little more deeply.