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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Enjoy our vacation! Friday

Friday

Friday.  Our last day.  Well our last day to really do anything.  So we decide to visit a botanical garden.  It was a smaller operation run on donations.  Since it was smaller, there weren't many of us there and we were able to wander the area without bumping into anyone or finding yourself stuck in a group of people.  Hubby was in still life photo heaven.  If there is one thing that everyone in my family knows about Hubby, it's that he likes taking pictures, LOTS of pictures.  Flowers, spider webs, patterns in trees, if it's in nature, he's taking a picture of it.  This is why most of the pictures on here will have been taken by him (I'll make sure I take credit for those I did take).  The place had some nice flower beds and wildflower areas in front and then mostly walking trails beyond.  It really was perfect though, the kids could hike without worrying about hurting themselves or falling down the side of a mountain.

I have always loved black eyed susans.  I'd never have the guts though to make a large area along my fence dedicated to them.  Somehow they look pretty here, I think in my yard I'd manage to make them look like weeds.


Look carefully!  There is something reddish flying around that flower.  It's wings are flapping so quickly they are a blur.  It hovers and we saw it flying up and down as well as backward.  It was going into the flowers with something long from its front end.  What could it be?!  I thought it was a small hummingbird.  I've seen the little bitty ones at the museum before and thought for sure that's what it was.  Hubby said he thought it was a huge bee.  That big?  No, Hubby, that's huge!  That can't be a bee!  We asked the person at the visitor center/gift shop about what it was that we saw.  They got the bug guy and he told us that it was a mimic.  It was a giant moth mimicking a hummingbird and he had seen one at the same spot that we saw this one.  Apparently he had done a double take and thought it was a bird as well until he saw the two feelers coming off the top of its head.  I guess you could say we were both right, it was a bug (not the right one) and it was mimicking a hummingbird (not really the bird though).



I took this one!

Anyone who has ever tried walking with Bug knows that this walking session was way overdue.  He did not like it at all and ran around me in a circle.  He did hold my hand after that though and has since been holding my hand much better than before.

So apparently I had been wrong when I told Hubby that there was no way a bee could be that big.  I have no clue what kind they are, but they are both nasty and look like they came out of the Jurassic Era.


A rough day walking requires a walk around the downtown area.  They had some... interesting... art there, including this giant iron.  What a great reminder that I need to iron my clothes more often.

While we were downtown we visited All Fired Up Pottery.  The kids were able to pick out a piece of unpainted, unfired pottery, paint it however they want, the store fires it and you can pick it up or they ship it to you.  They both enjoyed it, they both picked out practical mugs.  Practical as in they can use it.  Not so practical since Monkey's is quite large.  Oh well, 10 days later they were done and we received them in the mail.  The kids were like Christmas morning opening the very well wrapped box.

After that it was quite late and of course we hadn't eaten.  So we stopped at the Early Girl Restaurant.  All organic food and locally grown or bought.  They also had the absolute best banana walnut pancakes.  Sunshine was nice and said she liked mine better but I know she was just giving me a pity compliment.

For absolutely fabulous fudge and ice cream, they also had a Kilwin's fudge.  I love fudge, but I'm particular with it.  I could have eaten the full box we bought.  We came home with 3 2" thick x about 7" long x about 5" tall of different types of fudge.  I know the kids helped pick it out, they gave us free samples of them that were big enough that all 4 of us could sample the same piece, but I don't know if they actually had any once we bought it.  I think Hubby and I ate all of it.

Time for bed, tomorrow it's time to leave and drive another 12 hours.


Vicky

2 comments:

  1. The botanical garden is gorgeous! Great pics, btw! :)

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  2. If you can figure out what kind of creature the one on the black eyed susan is, I'd really appreciate it!

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