One more exploration before we go back to work

Today's goal was to check out the Swamp, the woods on the south side of California road, which until this summer was always water-filled. The secondary goal was to check out the south bank of Stony Run's entrance into the river- reversing yesterday's trip by going in at the landing, while trying to avoid becoming disgusting yet again.

We entered the Swamp at this huge dead double trunked tree.

The Swamp itself appears to have been one of those water-filled holes we're always running into that some highly-educated engineer decided to build a road right through. About thirty feet in, the ground rises about 6 feet to the level of the field beyond. Thirty feet south woulda made a BIG difference, dude.

We struggled to find anything resembling a trail amidst the rise, and exited at the east end of the swamp, finding nothing of note, unless you're a collector of old blue bottles.

We then went down to the landing, where we saw that some bright person (possibly a road engineer) tried to drive off the landing into the muck. Fortunately for them, it would seem that sanity struck before they got TOO stuck. We circled the big weed island, and here's some of what we saw.

See the heron flying in front of big weed island?

Scrappy really wanted to get the seagulls out on that sand spit.

Ducks on Stony Run.

After which, we returned via the back trail to Tina's landing. Just as we were turning back out to the road, Mr. Buck decided to jump the creek (from the far side to our side), crash through about 20 feet in front of us, and take off down the road that is actually an extension of the greenway but is used as an access road by the contractors building between it and the hotel. (It looks to be another suite of medical offices by the looks.) Scrappy demanded to follow, and he tracked him until he apparently went into the Swamp about halfway down. At this point, I decided I'd had enough adventure for one day, and promptly fell down. All in all, a good end to a week of exploring.