![\"santee-state-park-lake-marion.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/santee-state-park-lake-marion.jpg\" "\\"santee-state-park-lake-marion.jpg\\"")
<\/a>The major theme of Santee State Park seems to be boating on the lake. \u00a0 The lake features a flooded cypress “forest,”\u009d which is an unusual feature. \u00a0 Since we didn’t happen to strap a boat to the roof of the Honda, we walked the \u00be mile nature trail instead.<\/p>\nFrankly, there wasn’t a lot of interesting nature revealing itself on the trail, except insects such as spiders, beetles and ticks. \u00a0 Emma discovered a few ticks on her shoes from a short sojourn off the trail into some grass, but fortunately I’d sprayed her legs with bug repellent before the hike and we were able to evict the ticks before they got a nibble of her.<\/p>\n
Even in the shade of the trees, the humidity slowed me down. \u00a0 Just that little walk made me look forward to some air conditioning. \u00a0 We have not yet escaped the southeast humidity, and it’s likely we’ll find more of the same up north in a few weeks. \u00a0 I’m going to have a tough readjustment to northeast summer conditions.<\/p>\n<\/a>For most of the hike I was elected to walk in front so my face would collect the webs strung across the path, and I eventually amassed quite a collection of them. Finally I started keeping my eyes open for spider webs, and that led to my involvement in trying to photograph spiders in their webs. \u00a0 It’s a worthy photographic challenge, one which will probably keep me occupied for a while just like hummingbirds and bees have occupied me at various times. \u00a0 Right off the bat I can see I don’t have the right lens for the job “\u00a6<\/p>\n