Congaree National Park-An Ode to Trees

    Hi everyone. Happy Sunday and weekend to you. 

    And to all you Mothers (of human  children or other children most probably  of the 4 legged variety),

  Happy Mother's Day. 🎕 ❤ 

     Today I am linking up to Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room (Sitar) and Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

    I'm taking you to Congaree National Park which is outside of Columbia, South Carolina. We visited the park when my husband I  took off a few weekends ago and flew to Charleston (South Carolina).  On Saturday (of that weekend) we took the 2 hour drive inland to visit this park since we hadn't been there before and didn't know when we might be back in this area again. 

   Congaree  National Park  is basically  a large track of bottom land forest with a couple of rivers running through it. It's beautiful forested land too, quite different from what grows in New Hampshire. 

    My art today is me trying to get some interesting tree and forest views. We walked the Boardwalk trail, which because 1/3 of it was removed for reconstruction, meant we walked about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the end and then turned around and walked back. It was a lovely walk though, and I saw lots of wildlife. (Although for the sake of brevity, I'll have another post later in the week with the wildlife and some other park views.)

    This was not only a beautiful walk, but really relaxing since it was flat. And although my photos make it look like no one was there, when we first arrived it was quite crowded. In fact, we had a hard time finding a spot to park.

     And here's some of my "Arty" photos of trees, at least the ones I really like. I'll start with this loblolly pine. Wow those are tall trees. And what a fun name too. 

A cool shadow

and then more height

 Below is the bark of the loblolly pine.

Fungi enjoying the remains of a dead tree, and then below, a very large plant gall.

And I didn't know we had wild American holly either. 

    Being bottom land the forest floor was quite muddy in places. We ran into a couple from New Hampshire (that we didn't know) but we were chatting, and they told us that when  their son had visited the park  the bottom land was flooded. I'm not certain when that was.  From what I read the forest mud here was quite thick, which is why there is a boardwalk.

    Of course, being wet, this place could be filled with mosquitoes.

    But as you can see on the Park's Mosquito Meter, it was not a problem the day we went. In fact, there weren't many insects at all. This park does not allow bug spray because it was one of the few places in the southeastern US where there are synchronized firefly events-meaning all the fireflies are flashing at a similar time. We missed that event by a few weeks, but since it is very popular, there is a lottery for tickets to attend. They can't have the park trampled by people and all the habitat for the fireflies ruined.

   As I mentioned, I'll have another Park post later this week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

 

T Stands for My First Keurig

Hi everyone. Happy T day.

I hope everyone has had a couple of nice weeks. My husband and I went away on a trip to some National Parks out in the western US. That is why I haven't been visiting for T the last 2 weeks.

I am happy to be back though as I missed checking in with all your lovely T ladies. 

When I returned home there was my envelope with some beautiful napkins as well as 2 great ATC's. One ATC was from Jo and one was from Bleubeard and Elizabeth. I know I am late sharing, but THANK YOU everyone for picking up such great napkins, and thank you Jo and Bleubeard and Elizabeth for the ATCs. They were lots of fun.  

And I'm not sure who included the bee sticker (Elizabeth maybe it was you), but I love it! 

I wish I had been here last week to share these when they arrived.

On our trip we visited 8 National Park Service sites, including 4 national parks, 2 national monuments, 1 national recreation area and 1 national historic park.  We drove about 2300 miles, were in 6 states, and even though we covered a lot of ground, we saw some gorgeous scenery. 

Today my T day drink has to do with the beginning of the trip. 

The first place we visited was Great Basin National Park, which is in Nevada, just over the border from Utah. And without exaggeration, it is in the middle of nowhere.

These next couple of photos aren't the best as I snapped them through the front windshield of the car as we were driving. To reach our destination, we drove through a lot of uninhabited desert range land. We were on the road for about 1 1/2 hours without passing what I'd call a town.

When you reach the Nevada state line this road becomes highway 50, which is known as The Loneliest Road in America. 

I didn't know what to expect from the place we were staying. I'd booked it off the internet since I've never met anyone who visited this park before. The motel had excellent reviews. Yet after the drive my husband and I had just completed we thought our hotel would be a little sparse like the one at the gas stop we made.

 To get to our hotel we had to drive down 6 miles of gravel road and up over the mountains you can see in the background of this next photo.

The mountain view at the top of the ridge was pretty, And then we started down. When we got to the bottom of the canyon we came to our hotel.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that  the canyon was green. There were some trees and a little river running down through the area. 

The owners also had great  communication before the trip. They emailed with directions how to find them.  They emailed about the national park and to be sure to sign up for cave tours early (starting 30 days in advance) because the tours filled up fast.  They also mentioned how they had quiet hours between 9PM and 9AM, and that at night they turned down the lights so people could find a place to enjoy the very dark night sky. And most importantly, they emailed with a notice that the nearest grocery store was 1 1/2 hours away so to come prepared with food.  (And we did stop at Costco in Salt Lake City and got ourselves some food.)

Our room was very nice and very comfortable  but not luxurious.There was a kitchenette so guests could prepare food. And it came with a Keurig coffee maker.

Finally, here's my link for T day this week over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

I'd never used a Keurig before, and I had to have my husband show me what to do.  One of the packets was for English breakfast tea, and you can see I decided to give it a try.

And I toasted up a bagel and used some cream cheese that we got at Costco. That was a very satisfying breakfast.

And yes, the room did come with plates, but for some reason I decided to just use a paper towel that morning, 

My husband and I both agreed we really like this hotel/ranch. It was our favorite place we stayed during the whole trip.

OK, enough of my babble. Thanks for visiting. I hope you have a great T day and week ahead. 

Saturday Advenure

This past Saturday was an adventurous day for me. My daughter Katie and myself went out on an afternoon jaunt-
down to the Boston burbs.
It was great to spend the afternoon with her. Haven't had enough mom/daughter time lately.

Olmstead was the father of Landscape architecture. He designed Central Park, the Boston Arboriteum, the Chicago World's Far in the late 1800's and hundreds of other places all over the US. Katie wrote her final paper for her architecture class on him, and she wanted to go visit his house and studio. So since she and I were open all afternoon, we went. The garden of his home was great , and so was the work studio. 

He had a room full of these drawers for storing project info. 4 walls with these drawers, all labeled, floor to ceiling. Wow! I want these to store my supplies in. This snippet shot hardly shows what this room was. But I know if you use your imagination you can picture it. Hundreds of these drawers.

I was drooling the whole time I was in this room. 

Cool old fashioned work table. I'd take it. It even had lots of little pin pick holes in it from the pointy end of compasses. 

I'd also love these great sun room looking out onto this really lush and green backyard. For being just 15 minutes outside of downtown Boston, it is amazing.

It is also very late 1800's-maybe arts and crafts style is what you'd call it. And they had these cement walls in this room with all these stones set into them. And a tile floor. 

The house part was otherwise empty of furniture but the ranger told us that they are getting some in the period style.

The office part though was fulling decked out in the mode it would have been back 100 or so years ago.

This is one of the first blue printing making machines. Really funky, eh?

You wrap your drawing on the outside class and then unroll the canvas around it to make it light proof on the outside. Then you turn on a suspended light bulb and slowly drop it to process your light sensitive paper.

Then we found out that the JFK birthplace was just 2.6 miles away. That made it close enough that we just had to go. And we managed to get there just before the last tour of the day too.

It looks like a big house but it is really a quite modest place. The first floor had a bath, kitchen, living room and dining room. Three bedrooms and a small office upstairs. The 2 maids slept on the very very top floor.

I guess if you have 2 maids, however modest your house is, means you have money.

But this was back in 1917 (from 1914 into the early 1920's) so maybe having a maid isn't such a big deal.

This is one of my favorite sights from the house:

The little kids table. I guess even future presidents have to sit at one of these when they are small.

The whole house reminded me of a grandmother's house.

And I guess the weirdest thing of all is that it is on this residential street in Brookline, MA. 

Normal people with normal houses and lives just a few feet away.

Wonder if they get sick of all the tourists coming through?

Finally, we went out for an early dinner at one of our favorite places to eat -The Cheesecake Factory. The closest ones to us are down in the Boston area, so it is a treat to go. We had small salads and of course, big pieces of cheesecake.

Katie and her caramel, white chocolate and macadamia nut cheese cake. With whipped cream of course.

My lemon with raspberry sauce- and whipped cream too.

YUMMY!!!!!

So I can't believe this is my last week of vacation. Katie's too and then she's back to school on Sunday.

Time flies, doesn't it always?

Before you know it, we'll be carving pumpkins.

I have a lot on my plate this week too!

It will be a very adventurous way to end my summer.

Starting with today, all 3 of us are going to Maine to my brother's camp in Harrison. 

Will have stories to share I am sure about that on another day.

Thanks for visiting.