Our first night at Merchants Millpond State Park. We took a hike from the campground up to the visitors' center. This is the view behind the center, at the dock. Absolutely beautiful. We got to see a lot of turtles around here. The park rents canoes out, so we took advantage of this beautiful park.
We took out three canoes. Unfortunately, I'm not great at canoeing. Even more unfortunately, there are a TON of snakes in these waters. Snakes like cottonmouths. Scary as all get out for me. The scenery was beautiful, and it would have been very relaxing being on the water and cruising their trails, had I been able to work the canoe well. K and I did not do well together, and we both spent more time frustrated than relaxed. In addition to the cottonmouths, there are a bunch of turtles and a few alligators. We didn't see the alligators, but so very many turtles.
It was so much fun to see all the turtles. The whole area of North Carolina we were visiting has turtles all over the place. On the way to church we would just point out all the turtles on the side of the road. So much swampy area, the turtles were just a constant presence.
While I loved seeing all the turles, I did NOT love seeing all the snakes. This dude is a cottonmouth. He's huge. HUGE. Did I mention he's H-U-G-E????? And we got entirely too close for my comfort. K and I got within maybe 15 feet of him, but apparently Bill and his canoe of kids got within five-ish feet. I saw a bunch of other snakes swimming in the water. I didn't panic too much while we were out there, but learning that this guy was such a deadly beastie, it truly gave me pause about being out in that water. So I didn't go out another time. Bill did take the kids out again, but I stayed back. I would have liked to go out there again, but I think I'll take another time out on a canoe on a different body of water.
Back on land, in our campsite, I caught a glimpse of these. There were only these two, and I was so enchanted with them, I took out the camera and snapped away. Bill spoke with the ranger about them when he came around, and he didn't know what they were. His best guess was that they're anamolies, galls. Basically the tree is afflicted with them. I still think they're absolutely gorgeous.
These guys and I took another hike, this time away from the visitors' center. This spot has a bench so we could just sit and relax, looking at the swamp. While I love this area, there were only very few turtles there, so it's not my favorite.
We hit the visitors' center before we left. I took one more walk down to the dock to say goodbye to all the turtles, and this guy was waiting on the path for us. He wasn't super-psyched that we were on the path with him, but he did stick out his head while were right by him. It was just very cool to see all these fabulous animals.
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