The third hurricane Jeanne left Atlanta last night. It was not as strong as Ivan but stronger than Frances. Atlanta is enough inland not to have strong damaging winds. Yesterfay was more windy than usual and a few big old trees felt in the area but it is not a real problem, unless you are one of the unlucky guys with a tree that felt on his house!
The problem in Atlanta is more with the amount of rainfall and floodings. Well everything is relative, I still have not seen a really flooded road. Each hurricane brings with it about 24hours of heavy rain.

Rainfall amount at Hartsfield-Jackson airport:

• Frances (early september): 76.8mm
• Ivan (mid september): 128.9mm
• Jeanne (end september): 124mm
• Total september: 345.7mm
• Average september: 104mm
• Average year: 1270mm

Located in Southeastern Georgia, about 4 to 5 hours drive from Atlanta, the Okefenokee Swamp is the largest Swamp in North America, approximately 700 square miles (1800 km²).
We visited it last saturday. It had rained a lot during the preceding days and according to the guide, the water level was about 3 feet (1m) higher that normal. Water depth in the swamp is usually shallow, seldom greater than nine feet. Unlike what it seems (the water looks black), the Okefenokee water is clean and drinkable, but it is stained by tannins produced by decaying vegetation. It also makes the swamp water be very acidic, with a pH of 3.7.

Obviously a swamp is not a forest and hiking is not the best way to visit it, so we took the one-hour boat tour. There is an extensive network of canoe trails in the swamp, over 120 miles (200km) of trails, the ones we saw were very scenic. Most trails are actual natural canals and were used for ages by the Seminole, the Indian tribe that used to live in the area.
Even if you don't want to take a boat tour or rent a canoe, there is a pretty nice broadwalk built on the water that will lead you pretty far in the swamp.

The swamp vegetation by itself makes the trip worthwile. Lots of Pond Cypres covered with spanish moss (again), water lillies, pines, palmettos, all growing directly in the water or on dry land, in the numerous islands there are in the swamps. When I say dry, everything is relative, they would probably be called marsh somewhere else but in comparaison with the swamp they look dry...

The swamp is also rich in birds, fishes, amphibians and reptiles including the American alligator! 20,000 of them live in the swamp if I remember correctly what the guide said, and we saw quite a few of them, some small, some big (more than 10ft - 3m in length), some far away and some just close enough to make you feel a little nervous and to make you take seriously the guide instructions about letting your hands inside the boat;-)

Pictures posted here (public): www.windal.net/gallery/Okefenokee and here (private access).

Two Nephila clavipes (Golden Web Spider or banana spider), one male and one female. The small one is the male, it is almost an inch wide, the female is a monster about 5 to 6 times bigger. In the background, a tree.
And I almost ran into it as I was too busy looking at alligators, cypress and lilly ponds around me. Anyways, Banana spiders are kind of jokers, not even poisonous (pfff....). They kill their preys the old-fashioned way, without using any chemical stuff!
This is an example of little nice animals we spotted last week-end in the Okefenokee swamp in southern Georgia. I am still sorting my pictures, more details on the swamp soon...

Visit of Savannah last sunday. Savannah, one of the oldest town in the US, founded in 1733.

The architect and founder of the city, general James Edward Oglethorpe structured the city as a grid of 24 squares on top of a denser street grid, along the Savannah river.

Numerous public buildings like the courthouse or the post office, old churches and historic houses (several centuries old) such as the "Owens-Thomas House", were built around the squares, Lafayette square, Madison square, Calhoun square, Wright square, etc...

The streets are sided with nice and ancient townhouses, southern style... The inventive city pattern makes the city very pedestrian friendly, the whole city can be visited on foot, walking from one square to another, which is a feature you would usually see more in Europe than in America.

The city offers also extensive patches of green vegetation, lots of Live Oaks and other southern trees like the maniolias (covered with spanish moss!)...

It can even be difficult to take pictures of a building without having at least half of the picture taken by branch trees.

Pictures here (public): http://windal.net/gallery/Savannah as well as in the private album.

Hurricane Frances was not as strong as expected, and not as bad as what Ivan (the terrible?) may be, so far a category 5, it should be here around thursday.

Frances still generated a lot of rain in the area, with floods in various places. Three days almost with uninterrupted rain, heavy at times...
There are pictures of the Big Creek in Alpharetta. The small river suddenly turned itself into a muddy brown torrent, flooding the bike trail (big creek greenway) on its side.

It does not take much to make the Big Creek flood anyways, just a big storm in summer, and there is an area around the Big Creek that is frequently flooded and kind of swampy, like on the picture below (pretty nice one, I know :-] ).
Click on the pictures to enlarge them, click here:
www.windal.net/gallery/BigCreekGW to see them all.

Sunset over Georgia (near Macon).

The last week end was pretty busy. I am writing this while it is pouring down, Frances finally arrived in Atlanta. Total rainfall should be around 4-5" between yesterday evening and tomorrow morning, flash floods expected.

Saturday, in addition of having fun in the pumpkins, we started by the north Georgia mountains, in Amicalola Falls state park:

Photos there (private album): http://windal.net/gallery/PrivAmicalola

Sunday spent in Atlanta, Piedmont park and the botanical garden:

Album (private) here:
http://windal.net/gallery/botanic

Finally, monday (labor day), the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell, where you can see butterfly flying around carnivorous plants:

Click to enlarge

And magnolias growing in the forests (magnolia is native of the south).

Click to enlarger

All the pictures of the nature center here (public album):
http://windal.net/gallery/ChattaNatcenter

Me in the middle of a giant pumpkin field!