George L. Smith II State Park

We had some beautiful weather for our drive to George L. Smith II State Park yesterday, and what a gorgeous place it was. We walked out across a short bridge to a dock, always mindful of lurking alligators (we still have seen none).

From there, we looked right and we could see the refurbished Parrish Mill, a combination gristmill, saw mill, covered bridge and dam built in 1880.

To the right, we had the most beautiful view of the Mill Pond with its stand of bald cypress trees.

It was hard to take our eyes off the pond. It was extraordinarily beautiful. Here's a panorama of the place. Remember that you can make the image larger by clicking on it.

We learned quite a bit about the cypress trees when we were at Congaree National Park in South Carolina. Here, we read some more interesting information about them.

When we could tear ourselves away from the pond, we walked over to take a look at the covered bridge structure. There was a sign above the door labeling it "Museum."

To the right was run-off from the dam built under the structure.

Here was an explanatory sign.

All of the lumber for this structure was milled right here on site at the sawmill. Here's the sign explaining all of that.

It must have been a tremendous amount of work. Look at all the lumber here.

The signs describe best how the whole thing worked, and explain its importance to the community, and so I'll include quite a few here. Just scroll on by if that sort of thing bores you.

The exhibit included some of the old rail car wheels.

I'll show you where the dam was located in just a minute. This contraption was located to the left of the door where we entered.

It turned out to be a cotton gin. Here's the sign explaining how that worked.

This image shows how it would have looked when the mill was in operation and serving the community.

The print at the bottom of the images above and below is tiny, and so I'll read it for you. Above, it says, "This is the cotton gin that was installed, which was state of the art at the time. Below, it says, "When farmers brought the cotton in on wagons, it was vacuumed up and into the gin."

Toward the end of the structure, we could peer through a plexiglass window to see the workings of the mill. To the right we saw this:

To the left, we saw this:

Here's a diagram showing how the whole thing worked.

It was accompanied by an explanation. There are just a few more signs after this, I promise.

Toward the back end of the structure, it looked like this:

There, we could see the original turbine that drove the whole thing.

Later on, it was replaced with a diesel engine.

Around back, we could see the dam. Water was spilling over the dam under the structure, and that provided the power that ran the turbine.

Here's some information about how that works. (Last sign, I promise.)

For all your hard work at reading those signs, take in this one last view of the pond. The image below is going into my Sketchbook.

My one word for this One Word Wonder is "Reflective."

On the way back, we stopped off at one of the many cotton fields we saw along the way. Most have been harvested by now, but a few still had their bolls attached. Also, as we've driven along, we've noticed that it appears as if the roadways are littered with trash. In fact, it's not trash at all, but little bits of cotton that have blown off the trucks hauling it to market...or wherever they're going. So here's how the field looked. It was rather a weedy field, and so I tried to choose a weed-free patch for my picture.

Here's how the cotton looks growing on the plant.

I picked off a piece and dug deep to find the seed. The seeds are brown, and about the size of a pea. The raw cotton is as soft to the touch as you'd expect it to be.

Imagine the labor involved in removing the seeds before Eli Whitney came up with his idea for the cotton gin.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped off in the tiny town of Millen for some groceries. Across from the grocery store was this impressive structure. No indication of its function.

When we got back home and put away the groceries, I gave the kitties the one stem of cotton I'd plucked from the field.

Hmmmm...what's this? Is it alive?

Hey! This has purrtential. Sadie! Come see what mom brought fur us!

What is it Smitty? What's it fur?

I don't know, Sadie. We could just tear it limb from limb and call it good.

Okay...so that happened.

And then I baked some bread. I had a yen. When we left home, I packed every shape and size of baking pan in the kitchen, and I'm determined to use every one before we get back home again.

This is my favorite Christmas bread: Cranberry-Orange Bread with Grand Marnier Glaze. You can find the recipe right here. The recipe will make two large loaves or else six little loaves, which makes it good for gift-giving. You can also switch out the dried cranberries for dried cherries, and then use Amaretto in place of the Grand Marnier for the glaze.

I like it best with cranberries...and I don't use Grand Marnier either. I use triple sec. If you don't want the alcohol, you can use orange juice. Yesterday, I made just half the recipe. One loaf was probably plenty for us, although I'm sure we could easily put away two loaves, if we were forced to...like if somebody threatened us with a rubber band or something.

We each had a slice for dessert last night.

And then, we each had another slice.

Today we're heading on down the dusty trail again. Our next stop is the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. There are few words I enjoy saying more than "Okefenokee." Typing it on the other hand, is a bit of a finger-twister. We have a reservation at a private campground just outside the park entrance. We're promised "high speed internet" right at our site, but sometimes these promises turn into dust in the wind...not that I'm overly dramatic about my internet access or anything. We'll see. If you don't hear from me for a few days, you'll know why.