Took a brief and lovely walk through the Bald Cyprus and Slash Pines of the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary just outside of Naples, Florida yesterday morning. Just after dawn became day.
I had an hour before I had to hit the road to the airport, so I listened to the admonishments of the signposts that urged 2.5 hours to do the whole route and took the shortcut back. Which meant I missed over half of the boardwalk. Which I regret.
With a little leg I could have pulled of the whole stroll in the time I had, although admittedly I would have had less time to hang out with the pileated woodpecker who burrowed the bark just off the trail (shoulder height. could have touched him if I tried.). And I may not have paused long enough to see the nesting Swallow Tailed Kite through the scope that the folks at the interpretive center had left on the trail, sited to the tip top of the tree tops.
I most certainly would have missed the endangered Wood Stork (the second of the trip) glide low and slow over a boggy spot where I was gazing at a Limpkin.
It's a beautiful, brilliant, rare kind of place, that in just an hour put right a good share of what I had broken in my soul through over work and too much fuss about things that just don't matter all that much.
I hope to get back.
Posting by cameraphone.
