3-29-17 State Botanical Gardens of Georgia, Athens:

According to MOBOT, the garden in Athens is another reciprocal garden.  It's just under an hour away from here, so we decided to go check it out.  I was a little concerned when I saw online that it's actually free for everyone, not just members.  Seems like if it's free for everyone, it wouldn't be all that great.  But I was mistaken, it was another really beautiful garden.
Even the ride to Athens was nice---not a lot of traffic, mostly state highways, beautiful weather... .

 Just in the past few days I've noticed a lot more green in the trees.  Pollen counts are soaring, but it's beginning to look a lot like Spring.

3-26-17  looking for the NW passage!----

Except that I'm really looking for a SW passage from the Ivy Creek Greenway to the Suwanee Greenway.   They are suppose to get connected someday and apparently people have made their way from one to the other, but I haven't been able to make that connection yet.  Figure if I can, it'll make my biking a lot more interesting.  So today I took a stroll in the preserve to see if I could finally find it.  Someone told me a couple days ago that after crossing the bridge, you go off trail and follow the river---so off I went.
Just below our apartment complex is this concrete drainage ditch.  On one of my strolls past here awhile ago, I saw another ingenious use for it---a skate board park.

 This is part of the extensive twisting bridge at the base of our complex that ends up going over Ivy Creek.

3-25-17  Since going and seeing all the daffodils at Gibbs Garden, I've been wanting to get up to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and see what's blooming there.  So when Angie asked if we wanted to go there with her and Josh today, I said YES!  Ken even agreed to go!  She also said there was a Cuban food truck that would be near the garden--- in Piedmont Park---and they wanted to go there for lunch.  Double Yes!!

 Spring has sprung!  Tulips were pretty much in full bloom.  They were so beautiful!  I like that they come in so many colors.

 Josh and his new friend.

3-20-17 sunset at sunset cove:
Finally made it to sunset cove when there was a really nice sunset.  It was a beautiful evening weatherwise, too.  I thoroughly enjoyed my hour or so visit here watching the sun go down, then catching the next half hour or so while the skies turned colors!
The marina to the north.

3-17-17 our bird friends:

I love being able to look out our living room window and seeing so many birds.  I even made hummingbird water today.  Haven't put it out yet, but it's ready and getting cool.  But for now, we have lots of birds to watch.  Not to mention the family of squirrels that we keep trying to keep out of the bird feeder.  There are birds at the feeder almost all day now.
Such as this female Cardinal

 We have some new regulars now, too!  Love having colorful birds coming to visit.  I believe this is a Goldfinch

3-13-17  Sea Creek Falls:

Another difficult falls to find!  The directions we had weren't very clear!  We still didn't have internet, either, so had to wing it.
 Got a bit concerned when we got this far.  We weren't going to drive over the river, so parked and checked to see if there was a path from this side.

 there was.  So we walked the .1 or .2 mile trail.

3-13-17  Toccoa River Swinging Bridge:

The sign on Highway 60 directed us to the swinging bridge.  It was 3 miles in to the small parking area.  Took us about 15-20 minutes each way to go the 3 miles.  Then we walked another 20 minutes or so each way to the bridge.
Here's the beginning of the trail

 another downed tree.

3-13-17 Fall Branch Falls:

The first falls we went to from Blue Ridge, Ga., was Fall Branch Falls.  The info online said it was a short walk to the bottom of the falls.  So off we went!

The trail wasn't as nice as the one at Amicalola, but it wasn't bad.

3-13-17  back up to the cabin!

Last night when we got back to our apartment and unpacked, I realized I didn't have all the clothes I had taken up there!  So Ken called the manager of the cabin and told them I left some stuff there.  Guess I was so excited to get outside and take pictures of the snow before it melted that I forgot to finish packing!  Anyway, the manager found my stuff and we told him we would come back up for it today.  It was still really cold and suppose to rain, but it was only about a 1 1/2 hour drive through beautiful countryside, so why not.  Now that we're retired, we can do stuff like this!  So we found another route that was about 2 minutes longer, and saw some different countryside.
Even saw a reminder of long ago---

 And another painted egg---this one by a high school.

3-12-17  time to go back home:

Woke up to a surprise---snow!  It was rather pretty, though, and not enough to cause problems driving.  In fact it was melting by the time we left.  So I got up and took pictures right away.
This one was from our bedroom sliding glass doors.

Then I took a short walk around the property, again.
 Our cabin (River Run) and all our cars.

3-11-17  a day in the cabin:

After a really mild winter, it decided to turn cold this weekend!  It actually worked out well, though.  We were able to really enjoy the hot tub, the fire pit, and even just hunkering down in the cabin all weekend.
We started today off with a great breakfast casserole and blueberry banana bread made by Carol. Then a lot of visiting.  Carol and I even spent a lot of time discussing the upcoming baby shower we're planning for Angie and Josh.  They have finally finished all the stuff to be approved for adopting a baby.  Now they have to wait for a baby to come available.  In the mean time, we figured we'd throw them a shower.  It'll be in St. Louis at the end of next month.  Yep, another trip to St. Louis is in my near future!
Even Max (Carol and Darryl's dog) joined in the visiting.

 I managed to get in the hot tub about 5 times in the 2 days we were there. 

3-10-17 on to Ellijay for the weekend:

A few months ago, Angie started planning a weekend to a cabin in Ellijay with Josh's folks and us.  We had gone with them once before (back when they lived here about 5 years ago) and looked forward to going again.  It was a fun weekend then, and it was a fun weekend this time.
So on the 10th, Ken and I took off early and enjoyed the ride through the countryside to the northwest Georgia area.
 One of the many horses we saw along the way.  There sure are a lot of horses in Georgia!  Wonder if this is a descendant of an Indians pinto horse.

 love seeing spring beginning to arrive.

3-8-17  Gibbs Garden!

20,000,000 daffodils!!!!  That's what they advertise.  So I HAD to go see for myself!  I LOVE daffodils!  I think subconsciously I started liking them because they're the first color we'd see after the dreadfully long dull St. Louis winters.
I had read about a garden north of SR20 between Buford and I-75, so I decided to look it up when we were on our way back from Knoxville a couple days ago.  That's when I saw the pictures of the daffodils and the claim that they have the most daffodils of anywhere in the USA.  Unfortunately, they're closed on Mondays, so we couldn't stop then (about a 20 minute ride out of our way).  But I texted Angie and asked her if she wanted to go with me later in the week.  She said yes, so we decided on today.   I wasn't sure if they would have many daffodils still blooming since it's been really warm this winter and they bloomed early, but my fears were unwarranted.  (Good thing we went when we did!  The whole next week we were hit with the coldest air of the winter with temps down in the 20 a few days!)
Our ride would have been a bit shorter if they hadn't been painting lines on the new part of SR20.  We were stuck at the light for 3 rotations before they let us go.

  The ride from Buford was about an hour, but it's through countryside, so it is pretty. 

3-6-17 heading back to Georgia:

Monday rolled around and the kids went back to work, so we hit the road again.  Love the views of the mountains from I-75 in Tennessee!

 some interesting views on the highway, too---such as this load on a tractor trailer.

3-5-17  back into the Smokey's:

I love riding up into the mountains, so on Sunday we headed into the Smokey's.   I was even able to fill some more of my photo addiction of unique barns along the way. 

3-4-17  on to Knoxville:

It was a short St. Louis visit this time.  Only 4 full days.  But we packed alot into that.  I went swimming twice and volleyball once.  It sure was nice getting a chance to play volleyball again!  Ken visited a couple of his buddies who were in rehab centers right now.  We also made it to dinner with a couple we haven't dined with in years, as well as ate at Ken's brother's restaurant and had a nice visit with him, and went to dinner with Faith's dad and his new wife.  Lots of good eatin' and great visitin'!  We had thought about staying a couple more days, but decided to head to Knoxville on Sat. so we could spend Sat. night and all day Sunday visiting with Tim and Faith.  Another reason for wanting to go on this trip!
So we were off by about 8:30 am.  We had planned to meet up with David and Jane for breakfast in Mt. Vernon on our way through.  But just like last time, our plans were foiled by his foster kids.  Last time it was the run-a-way boy who he had to go to court about.  This time he was at the hospital with the new boy.  He's a large 18 year old senior in high school who thought it was a good idea to let a bully punch him to prove that he can take a punch.  The punch broke the kids jaw in 2 places and the stress caused his heart to have some problems.  He wasn't released in time for David and Jane to join us, so we stopped and had breakfast by ourselves, then continued on.
Here we are crossing over to Illinois on the newer I-70 bridge.  At least you don't have to go downtown to cross the river anymore.

 Another view of St. Louis from the new bridge.

2-28-17 a stroll through the Missouri Botanical Gardens:

One of the reasons I elected to go back to St. Louis was to go to the Orchid Show at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  They have it every year from something like Jan.- the end of March.  I've gone to it many years.  We happened to be having a really warm winter this year, too, so I was looking forward to wandering around the gardens.  So I messaged my photography friend to see if she wanted to go, too.  She did, and we met today for lunch in the park and a stroll around the gardens as well as checking out the orchid display.
There was quite a few things blooming already!

 looking back towards the entrance building from the gardens.

 the daffodils were pretty much in full bloom.  Love them!

 a low growing ground flower.

 One of the areas of the garden has a yard of crocuses.  They happened to be in bloom now, too.

 the lawn of blooming crocuses and other low flowering plants.

 These looked like azaleas to me, but I'm sure the plaque by them called them some kind of rhodie.

 even some of the dried flowers from last year looked neat.

 and the dried leaves.

 Don't know what these are, but they were blooming nicely already.

 more flowers in the Japanese Garden.

 MOBOT has one of the nicest Japanese Gardens I've ever been in.

 looking towards the bridge where the koi like to hang out under.

 another Japanese statue.

 one of my year around favorite views in the Japanese Gardens.

 Getting ready for St. Patty's day.

 The Climatron where the rain forest is.

 one of the many sculptures throughout the garden.

By now we'd been here about 3 hours---although the first one was while we had lunch in the nice cafe in the gardens.  Now it was time to check out the orchid show.  Every year they have some sort of theme to the show.  This year it was vanilla.  Throughout the show were plaques with info on vanilla and a few vanilla plants.  Unfortunately, none of them were blooming today.

But there were lots of beautiful orchids to check out.

 love all the different colors they come in.

 and shapes.

 even green ones.

 an unusual one.

 even the leaves are interesting.

 so many different shapes and sizes of orchids.

 another green one with a different color lip.

 Don't know what kind this is, but it reminds me of a space ship.

 delicate white ones.

 bold orange ones.

 This was probably my favorite of the orchids this year.  Reminds me of a yellow heart.

 some day I'm going to have to get a macro lens so I can get crisper close ups.

 Never noticed before how some of the orchids look like faces!

 I liked these leopard looking ones, too.

 many have similar colored petals with different colored lips.

 a bit of a normal angle view.

 pretty in pink

 little white ones.

 there were even several kids there---home taught, I presume?  They seemed to enjoy the gardens, too.

 the whole orchid garden is very lush.

 When we were done with the orchids, we wandered around the gift shop.  They have a rather large gift shop with a lot of unusual things in it.  I really thought these were a clever idea.  I have some sea biscuits which I may have do this to.

We easily spent about 5 hours there.  It's things like this that make me miss St. Louis sometimes.  This and meeting up with lots of friends and Ken's family.