Wednesday, April 27, 2011

THE most AMAZING swamp TOUR ever… I promise…

Honey Island Swamp Tours was hands down one of the best things I have ever experienced while traveling! It was absolutely reasonably priced, the people were MORE than polite and helpful and I could understand EVERY SINGLE word of Captain Charlie our tour guide. He was informative, not overly or weirdly friendly (you know how a tour guide can make you feel very odd?) He was the perfect amount of friendly and factual. We absolutely loved him!

It was April and I so ignorantly thought SWMP=warm…. not so much. When the boat started moving fast SWAMP+wind=fah-reezing! The girls were dying! Capt. Charlie so kindly shared his jacket with Kid2 and a sweet little girl next to Kid4 shared her jacket with her. After we got deep into the swamp though the coldness seemed to melt away and it was like we were in another world. All of a sudden we were surrounded by a wonderland of wild Irises and orchid's. The smell of bay leaves filled the air and a cool fresh living world surrounded us. It was amazing to see how trees LIVE, actually survive in the water, how their roots are so thick and how flowers grow wild right off of them. I loved the swamps, I just couldn't get enough of them.
My cold girl in our kind Captains coat.

I could NOT believe that wild iris's grow in SWAMPS! I could have looked at these for hours! The flowers were so beautiful to me. I had no idea that swamps were such an important eco-system. The flowers in the swamps were breathtaking! Who knew such beauty existed in such a place? I thought and thought about swamps while we were on this tour and it made me re-think so many things… I think I need to look so much deeper at so many things. A swamp is not what I thought. So many things are not what I thought… There are so many things that I need to look deeper into. There is pure true beauty in simple things that I have missed by looking at only a surface or a name.

This was the first alligator spotting. SEE what you might see if you look beyond? These lily pads were AMAZING! These were the biggest lily pads I have every seen before! I love lily pads! This was such a beautiful part of the swamp to me. I thought the swamp was kind of split of into rooms.. like when you visit an old house. It was like "this is the lily pad room… this is the iris room… this is the snake room…. this is the orchid room… this is the wild rice room…" but what I loved so much about it was that it was all natural … not wall papered, not planned by a mans hand or a womans brain, natural and there because of God. It was perfect.

My girl posing with an alligator. Probably (hopefully) as close as she'll ever get!

The big guy that visited our boat. He was all about the posing for a picture!

We loved Honey Island Swamp Tours! We will definitely go back. I'd like to see the swamp in every season. Experience it at all times. Thank you Captain Charlie for your time, for your great voice and for a truly unforgettable experience that we won't soon forget!

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