Thursday, September 3

Photos: A combination of mine and our daughter Deb’s. She was in the front of the van and we were in the back, so she got some great photos.

We never left the Marine Base to see all this beauty.

It has been many years since we traveled in the south and saw Spanish Moss. This is actually a plant from the pineapple family.

It does not harm the trees but absorbs moisture from rain and humidity. It spreads by seeds that travel by birds or wind.

I didn’t expect so much beauty on a Marine base.

We drove by many training obstacle courses.

We enjoyed seeing the wildlife. This is a fox squirrel, which is larger than the gray squirrels in our woodlot.

We were surprised to see an alligator on The Legends Golf Course.

By the time we turned around and came back, it had moved further into the golf course for sunning. There were people playing golf not that far away. The golf course was available to the general public. If you lived off base, you had to go through security and needed a Real ID or Military ID.

We also enjoyed watching several egrets.

It must have been the time of day for them to go to their nests for the evening because we saw several in the trees.

This great blue heron caught a snake as we drove by.

They were also flying to the top of the trees for the evening.

When we go back to the main base area, we drove by the barracks and found this sign which identified it as the place where Jesse lived.

Jesse said if this was his barracks, he was on the third floor to the right. There are a lot of barracks and other buildings in this area.

This was the chapel where the marines attended if they wished.

They weren’t forced to go to church (there were several other churches in the area), but if they stayed in the barracks on Sunday morning, they were given a duty which they probably wouldn’t enjoy.

The next post will be Friday morning colors.