Could this be it?

When I saw Deer Island going over the bridge into Biloxi, I had that vivid moment of wondering what the undeveloped land in the area would have looked like. I might have finally found out when I visited St. Marks Wildlife Refuge in the Florida panhandle. They have similar areas of marsh next to the Gulf of Mexico, and those beautiful lace-top trees that I now know are most commonly called Slash Pine.

This is what I imagine Biloxi, Mississippi was like before human modification. I know it's tiny, but if you look closely you may be able to see an eagle's nest with a bald eagle perched nearby:


Here is the same shot zoomed in so that you can see that I wasn't imagining that eagle:

This is why I think of Slash Pine as having lacy tops:


The marshy land there requires that the visitor center be built on stilts:


I like this photo because of the illusion that I used a fisheye lens when I didn't:


This was a lot of the reason that I wanted to drive back through the coastal panhandle rather than taking another route on the return portion of my trip. The weather wasn't as good as it was going East, but I still really enjoyed the drive. I wound up back in Apalachicola for the night in the rain and discovered that there are no restaurants that deliver in that town, so I had to go back out in the rain if I wanted more than just a snack. Still it was good to be back there. I enjoy revisiting places when I'm traveling in a different way than I enjoy seeing new ones. It feels good to arrive somewhere and know a bit about what I want to do or see.

If you want to hear some grackles making excited noises by clicking their beaks, check out this short video. I had to ask in the visitor center what the noise was and they explained that it's grackles expressing excitement or anxiety. That probably means I was standing too close. https://youtu.be/g3_8YQN6hNk

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