Last adventure of 2011

We've had such incredible, unseasonable weather this December.  Today it was in the 70s with a cloudless blue sky.  I wish August was this perfect.

We drove south today to visit the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and then into Savannah for lunch and a lot of walking to burn off lunch.  Being Saturday and New Year's Eve, Savannah was buzzing with people.

This is the ornate Scottish Rite building downtown Savannah, GA.

At the Refuge, we finally did the 4-mile Laurel Hill driving loop, which follows the dikes through the marshes.  We saw several different bird species - two kinds of egrets, herons, hawks, coots, a couple types of ibis, cormorants, and a few other species of ducks.  We also saw nine alligators - a couple were pretty big.

Despite all the cool things we saw, Steve said this was his favorite wildlife encounter of the day...right outside our front door.

There's an anole living between the brick veneer and the house structure, and it must be warm and safe in there because he's been living there as long as we've been in the house.  Today he jumped onto our screen door and we were afraid he was going to get in the house, so Steve reached up to shoo him towards the outside and the anole jumped on his arm and stayed long enough for me to snap several pictures.