The last time I was in Charleston missed the turn into my cousin’s development, but that meant I drove right past this gem of a place. I knew I’d want to visit when I came back this time. It was founded in 1676 by the Drayton family, and consequently endured and survived our county’s history as the country was born, and as it struggled with the American Revolution as well as the Civil War. It’s said to be the oldest public garden in the county, opening in 1870, and continuing today.
The beautiful wisteria caught my eye when I arrived.And this bench was a pretty sight also.But the peacocks were calling me. You could hear them throughout the garden, so I went to the little zoo before I went exploring.Nature does provide us with beautiful creatures.Three of them were strutting their stuff, but this gal didn’t seem to be impressed.Come walk with me.Such a pretty view.I loved this pond with it’s beautiful reflections.And this red bridge with cascades of flowers dripping from it.I took so many pictures of this bridge.Come around a bed in the path and you come upon another pretty scene.I thought of ‘Tiptoe through the tulips’,except they are azaleas. They really were a little past their prime, but still so amazingly beautiful.You might need a rest by now.There was a $20 charge for the gardens, in which I walked 2 1/2 miles. But for an extra charge you might want to tour the house, or take this boat tour, or walk the Audubon swamp tour, and/or more. I can return once more using my ticket, so I want to go back, but I don’t know which tour I want to choose.There were lots of these fat bumble bees around, and I was happy to see them since they’ve seemed scarce anywhere I’ve been lately. And they gave me a reason to concentrate on the flowers themselves.This was a very long distance shot from the wildlife observation tower. The horses were the only wildlife I saw.The family tomb.Another pretty path to lure you in. I’m sure I missed more paths than I actually walked.And after walking paths with lots of helpful signage, I eventually was off by myself, on paths with no signage, and hopefully not lost, but I found a butterfly…
I’ve hardly put a dent in the pictures I took today. It was a good day.
I don’t know that I ever thought of setting sail in a pirate ship as an Easter activity, but it sure turned out to be a fun day. The weather was gorgeous and the company was the best. John’s Pass is a fun place to visit and I wandered until it was time to board the boat. Oops, ship.
I knew these keyhole shapes in the bridge abutments were there.They give a nice frame for your picture.I watched this sailboat coming in and tried, and failed, to get a shot of the drawbridge opening to let it pass.I stopped to take this picture and hoped that that balcony on the left would give me a view of the draw bridge, but it didn’t.Normally sailing would seem to me to be such a peaceful way to spend the day, but those jet skis took care of that notion.Then I had to run because I saw that people were boarding the ship. Not the Dolphin Quest, the pirate ship behind it. I liked this view because I’ve been here for night photography and loved the rigging and flags when the string of lights is lit.Handsome pirates. I have grandchildren older than they are.We were in view of land the whole trip.When I took this shot a lady beside me nodded knowingly and said that she had taken that shot too. LOL.My new friend and nominee for ‘best costume’ of the day!I was so happy to see that I’d gotten a dolphin shot, then I saw that his fin is torn and half is drooping.And then were were back, and hungry. It was time to visit the Friendly Fisherman.I had a discussion of F-stops with my grandson, I hope he sees this shot.As I was eating my grouper tacos, YUM, I kept taking pictures of the various birds that perched on that post, putting themselves into a perfect frame. A pelican had stayed there so long that someone asked if it was real.I guess the pelican was king of the castle because the egret took no chances, it got itself out of the way.
What a fun way to spend the day with family and friends. And nobody had to walk the plank…
You’ve had one of those days I’m sure. The coffee maker dumps coffee and grounds on the floor, someone pounds on your front window tell you to move your car because they are repaving your street, you decide to go to the laundromat, but on the way you buy coffee and promptly slop it on yourself, then you give up and go take pictures…
Anclote River Park seemed like a good place to start.It was such a pretty day.Boats zooming by provided the action.There were ospreys on the nest nearby, but this shot took me by surprise. That tree branch is in the distance but looks like a disaster in the making.This one was on the other side of the nest.There was one on the nest also, and it looked like there was some feeding of chicks going on.Usually a pelican is supervising the boats being launched for a day’s outings, but this snowy egret was in charge that day.A pelican at Anclote Gulf park.This was my reception committee when I got home. That’s my driveway. I parked on the parking lot and walked home, and hoped for a better day to come.
Saturday night’s sunset was gorgeous, what little I got to see of it. I ran out the door barefooted and took a picture with my phone. When that happens it always makes me want to head out for the sunrise the next morning, as if the color from the night before will somehow make the sunrise just as pretty. I didn’t work, at least the other ladies who happened to be at Bayport taking pictures were complaining that it wasn’t what they had hoped for. ‘Thank goodness for the full moon’, they said. I didn’t disagree, but at the last minute, once the sun was up, the sky did get pretty, and yes, thank goodness for that full moon.
I have tried to take HDR pictures of the moon before but usually Lightroom says it can’t merge the photos. But for some reason this one worked.The color didn’t fill the sky exactly, but it was lovely in spite of it.And if you zoomed in a little you were all set!As you can see, I had company while enjoying the moonset.He was strutting his stuff…The sky got paler in this direction as the moon disappeared. According to another onlooker all the markers you see here aren’t for channels in the water. No, they are to mark the location of sunken ships left over from Civil war skirmishes between the confederate militia and union ships from Tampa.People rarely spoil a shot for me. I usually like the shots better with people, just like this one.Hmm, does ‘red sky in the morning, sailors take warning’ apply here?
It was obvious from the moment I pulled onto the parking lot that they weren’t going to be as busy at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday as I’ve come to expect them to be. But I had noticed that there was a big day of racing planned for the next day so I wasn’t that surprised. It meant for slightly less competition at the rail when it came time to try for photos, a boon for the shorter photographers among us. Namely me. This is one of the few photo walks from my group that is still happening in this pandemic, and I think it will happen only once more before the heat becomes too much and they stop racing for the summer.
I suppose it really isn’t possible to catch the horse with his nose breaking the finish line, er pole, since it’s really the pedestal he’ll get to first. But I still had to take this shot.The new official photographer likes to get in our shots of the finish line. She gets to stand up to the rail.Everyone’s masks were on, if not correctly covering our nose and mouth.Here’s a winning smile, even the horse.Now we know what Santa is up to on his time off.The owners’s official photo pose, just not for my camera.Last time I was here I thought I had walked down to see the horses come around the bend, but it turns out that you can go a lot further down and be on the rail, and they are flying right towards you.They are coming closer.This is definitely the place to stand for photos.I found a horse with all four feet off the ground.Wait, there are two!
Is it any wonder that those horses need to be hosed down after the race, as you see in the feature photo? There was a nice breeze blowing so those of us who spent most of the day standing in one place and talking didn’t get all that hot, but we didn’t quite last the whole day in the sun either, and headed home a little early. I wondered how much money was being won or last on a ‘slow’ day like this one seemed to be, then we heard a guy behind us declare that he’d just won over $700 on the last race. We checked the board and you only won $5 for every $2 bet, so you’ll have to do the math because it’s beyond me. Another nice day, probably nicer for that guy…
This park is just lovely, but I usually don’t stop to admire it’s green and shady peacefulness. My usual process is to get to Safety Harbor for the sunrise and then head to the park to see the owls, and once I’ve gotten those pictures I’m ready to drive the hour home again. But I did take a few moments to take some pictures of the park the other day. I love the stonework of the retaining walls and the path that zig zags its way down the slope to the water. As I took the feature photo I saw a bird fly through my shot, you can see it just below the horizon line towards the right hand side of the photo. I thought to myself that I hoped it would look good in the shot, but what took me by surprise was the big splash I heard a second later. I thought it must have been a pelican since they aren’t graceful when they hit the water, but I was surprised to see an osprey with a fish flying up and away. You know I took pictures but they were all too blurry to bother with.
As I approached the car to go home I saw a photographer under a tree near my car, shooting up into the branches. There had been a group there earlier also, and I was told that there was a screech owl up in that tree. I have a hard enough time seeing the much larger great horned owls so I stuck to my guns and got my owlet shots, and then my shots of the park, so I made one last stop and discovered that the osprey had chosen that tree to stop and have his lunch.
Now I was ready to go home, but I stopped to talk with a woman who asked me about the owls. I walked her over to the spot where I had stood to take my pictures and couldn’t spot the owlets, or the mom, and the entire lighting seemed very different. Sometimes you just get lucky I guess.
