Paul B. Johnson was a Governor of Mississippi during World War II and the State Park named for him sits on the shores of Geiger Lake. Once known as Lake Shelby for the nearby US Army Base, the lake was built by German Prisoners of War during the time of Johnson's governorship. Camp Shelby was one of several POW Camps in Mississippi during the War. There is a very interesting article online describing in detail the POW Camps in the state and the utilization of the prisoners for local labor projects.
The link below may not be live so if you want to read about the POWs you will need to copy the link and paste into your browser's address bar.
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?id=233
This is our second stay here and we stayed 6 days, the longest stop of our southern trek this year. We like it because we can park right at the water's edge as you can see from the first photo.
The park is located about 20 miles south of Hattiesburg on Route US 49. As you enter the park from the highway, you are faced with this low water crossing to proceed to the campground.
But we made it without incident! Below here is our view from our dining table where we see ducks, the occasional fisherman (or woman) or just the pleasant rippling of the water.
This scene is more or less out our windshield and it reminds me of a Bob Ross painting with all those "happy little trees here and there and there and here" as the late Mr. Ross often said while creating his images on PBS.
and below pulled out a little farther to include some happy little clouds, too.
A chain saw artiste has been busy since we were here last in 2008 adding some friendly bear sculptures around the campground.
Wildlife has been a little scarce this time but we did manage to see some of the local critters as we moved around. The lake covers 225 acres and is stocked with popular southern species including largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill, shellcracker and channel catfish. So it attracts lots of boat fishing enthusiasts.
Below is pictured a bunch of turtles sunning on a log. Notice 2 tiny babies at the right end of the log.
And in this we see the lonely Blue Heron on stakeout for lunch in one of the backwater pools.
Some resident Muscovy Ducks seem to be everywhere you look, but in reality there are probably fewer than a dozen cruising the shallows and occasionally getting a handout from campers. Muscovys are a Central American import which seem to be able to adapt to a variety of climates.
That will do it for this post. We will be in Beaumont TX for 3 days before heading to the Escapees Rainbow's End Park in Livingston for about 2 weeks.
