Crooked River State Park Bike Ride

Trip Start Nov 22, 2007

Trip End Dec 01, 2008

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Flag of United States St .Marys, Georgia
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

We spent a day on the mountain bikes exploring Crooked River State Park in Georgia, which is where we were camping. It is a beautiful park and has about 60 RV/tent camping sites, as well as a section of cottages. Many of the sites are well-secluded, so it's much quieter than many of the typical private RV parks. And a much more natural setting. Tons of trees and wildlife-armadillos, woodpeckers of all varieties, deer, wild boar, the omnipresent squirrels, and loggerhead turtles.

We took a couple of different trails, and snapped a few photos. This day marked my first encounter with a banana spider. Bob is fascinated by the creatures, but for those of you who know me, spiders are my main phobia. I am relatively fearless of all creatures from 0 thru 4 legs, but over 4 legs, and I get a bit uncomfortable. Well, this thing was HUGE! Big rectangular body and square head, and of course, those beady eyes; long legs with hairy knees

Bob on the shore

. EEEWWWW! But it had a certain perverse beauty to it. The color is a yellowish green/brown, and it has these bright yellow spots on the body. I screwed up my courage to photograph it. We got some good shots, but I'll tell you, when Bob coaxed the thing onto a stick so we could video tape it, and it started moving, I almost lost my cookies! I know we will encounter all sorts of insects and arachnids on this trip, but I'm not sure I will ever feel comfortable around them. Give me snakes, or bats, or mice instead any day.

The other pictures are views from the miles of trails we rode. It was a very nice day with perfect 75 degree weather. Later that evening when we were back at our campsite, we were checking out the dark night sky and the bright stars. The night sky is so different when you are far away from the city lights that diffuse the brilliance of the stars and planets. Well, we heard a rustling, and Bob shined his flash light on the trail and there was an animal that we both thought at first was a possum. We realized it was actually an armadillo, which are quite common throughout the south. I always connected them with Texas (the Texas "speed bumps" as they are called there), and had never seen one in nature before. We both expected it to be a sluggish creature, associating them with possum, obviously a misconception! When we approached this guy to get a closer look, he shot off like Speedy Gonzales

Carrie on the trail

! We ran after it and chased it into the bushes, but couldn't catch up.

Later on when we were sitting by the campfire recounting the day, we heard a loud rustling in the bushes. We figured from how loud it was it must be a wild boar or a deer, or maybe even a small bear! We got the flashlight and stalked the noise-this time we caught it right in the spotlight, just a few yards away. It turned out to be another armadillo! These are not stealthy animals; they make so much noise, you would think it was a deer or boar or bear instead of a 10 pound animal. We got a really good look at it this time--these are some strange looking creatures. It dove back into the brush and we could hear it making its way through the ground cover. We went back to fireside as another lovely day ended in paradise.

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