Laura Walker State Park - Waycross, Georgia

We had a bad case of cabin fever and needed to go somewhere...anywhere.  We like to make day trips, but the excessive heat has kept us indoors lately. We've been working around here trying to get the house ready to put on the market, but we needed a break.

We decided to head towards Valdosta, Georgia, which is about 60 miles east of us. 

I mentioned in a previous post about my problems with my Sciatic Nerve. I have been having a lot of pain any time I sit in a car or on the riding mower for more than a few minutes.  If you've never had it, it's hard to describe, but it's very painful.  I didn't know if I could sit in the car very long.  It comes from a nerve that starts in your upper hip and shoots down your leg.  The pain mostly is in your butt.  It started when we were installing the Allure flooring in the motor home.  I don't know why.

On Thursday,  Al asked me if I had tried JointFlex cream on it.  We have used JointFlex for many years, but it just never occurred to me to try it for this type of pain.  I put it on twice on Thursday and on Thursday evening I went out and mowed a while.  No pain!  Hummm??   I applied it again Friday morning before we headed to Valdosta.  We decided to head towards Valdosta and see how I did, then we could go on if I wasn't in pain.

I got stiff from sitting in the car, but no more than normal.  I had no sciatic pain in my butt!  I really think the JointFlex was helping.  I know it helped me years ago when I used to get a stiff neck and I could barely turn my head.  It helps Al's knee and shoulder pain, but I just didn't think about using it for my pain, for some reason. It has Glucosamine in it which is known to help arthritis and joint pain.  It also must have something to help muscle pain because it sure helped me.

Since I wasn't having any pain, we decided to head further east towards  Laura Walker State Park.  It's near Waycross, Georgia and sits on the northern boundary of the Okefenokee Swamp. 

The following is a  description taken from their website id from the Okefenokee National Wildlife  Park website.  It's quite an interesting place to visit.  We didn't go into the swamp because of the heat.


In southern Georgia and northern Florida there is a very special place, one of the oldest and best preserved freshwater systems in America. Native Americans called it Okefenoka, meaning “Land of the Trembling Earth”. Now this place, where earth, air, fire and water continuously reform the landscape, is preserved within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1937 to protect wildlife and for you to explore.

The Okefenokee offers so much, one could spend a lifetime and still not see and do everything. The refuge is vast, with almost 402,000 acres (that’s roughly 300,000 football fields in size) of cypress forest, marsh, lakes and islands. Filled with alligators, Sandhill cranes, red-cockaded woodpeckers and over 400 other species of animals, it is a wonderful place to learn about the wildlife of Georgia and Florida. The longleaf pine, cypress, carnivorous sundews and other plants make up different habitats from dry upland forests to open wetlands. Golden sunsets and thundering storms allows one to experience this magical place at its most beautiful and most awe-inspiring moments.


We were there a few years ago and rented a small boat and went into the swamp.  We are from Florida and have seen alligators...lots of alligators, but I can tell you, these were the biggest we have even seen.  There were a LOT of the big ones too!  I hear about people that kayak in the swamp and I cringe.  I know there are a lot of different areas in the swamp and maybe they don't all have the large populations of huge gators, but I would not kayak in the area where we went in the boat.  We didn't get to spend too much time there and always wanted to go back.  We didn't do any exploring due to the heat, but plan to go back when it's cooler.

Our main purpose was to check out Laura Walker State Park.  They have a campground and we wanted to see if we would like it.  We did!

It's a pretty park with a golf course and a lake as well as campground.

A lot of the sites were small and narrow, but there were a few that would accommodate a big rig.  I think we'll go there when it cools down a little.

We had a wonderful day.  I can't tell you how nice it was to just get out of the house.  We needed it!  We felt rejuvenated and ready to work some more on the house.  Al was working outside cleaning the siding on the house when it started to storm.  It stormed most of the day and we got over 1/2 inch or much needed rain.  We stayed inside and worked.  I went to my office and tossed out a lot of paperwork.  I saved a lot of claims information from my time at USAA Insurance.  I did some free lance claims adjusting here in Georgia, but the work was too sporadic so I am not doing it anymore.  I finally decided to toss most of that stuff!

We figure once the house is listed, and we have cleansed much of our "stuff", we will be able to go on the road for a few weeks/months at a time.   Then when the house sells, we can come back and get rid of the rest of it.  The key is to get rid of a lot of stuff.