Communing with Nature

It’s a very rare Sunday morning that we’re not at church, Ken playing drums and me singing, but we played hooky today. We took advantage of the fact that there wasn’t going to be a regular service to take our first Sunday off since July. Instead, we spent the morning in the beautiful Grassy Waters Preserve.

Grassy Waters is a wetland preserve owned and maintained by the city of West Palm Beach, and it is the fresh water source for that city and Palm Beach island. It’s over 20 square miles, is part of the Greater Everglades watershed, and is considered a pristine remnant of the Everglades system. Despite the fact that it’s only a half-hour drive from our home, we had never been there until today It won’t be the last time, I’m sure.

There are several trails throughout the preserve; we chose the boardwalk trail, which starts from the small but informative nature center. The trail zigzags through cypress hammocks and swampy areas, and provides beautiful vistas of the “river of grass.”

It was quiet and incredibly peaceful. Although it is supposed to be a good spot to observe wildlife, we didn’t see any, other than a couple of moor hens. But the skies were overcast and threatening, so I didn’t expect to see much. There were a few other people on the trail, but, much of the time, we felt as if we had the place to ourselves. There are numerous benches and shelters from which to sit and observe the scene. We found a lovely shelter with two rocking chairs, and I could have stayed there for hours.