On Friday, the kids and I took a field trip to the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. It was a place I'd wanted to go for a while, especially since spring hit Cary and all the beautiful, sweet smelling bushes, trees and flowers began to bloom. I thought going to the botanical gardens would give the kids and I an opportunity to see even more gorgeous blooms.
Eh...not so much.
The entry was promising,
as was the path on our way up to the Visitor's Center. But this is where our flower viewing came to an end. And, honestly, I see more flowers than this driving from our house to the library.
So, was the trip a bust? Let's see....
I thought the quilts we saw in the Visitor's Center were very beautiful. There was a lot of very creative art work and a nice gift shop.
There were a few trails for us to take, so the kids and I picked one. I believe it was the first we came to because none of knew what lie ahead. All of them looked the same so we set off.
There were a few bridges...none of which had any hand rails. They were wide enough so that wasn't really an issue, but what got to Scott was his sister's desire to wait until he was in the middle of one and then to rock it with her feet. Little imp. That's what she is. But she's so stinkin' cute.
Mylee marveled at this. What was this for? Was it really easier to walk up three steps and then down three steps than to simply walk over the log? We don't know...but it was fun, and she actually asked me to take a picture of her so I was all in favor of it.
There were a lot of wooden steps on the path, obviously man made, but there were so many roots that made natural stairs. Those were pretty cool. I was a little nervous about Scott's foot at this point. I was worried that all this climbing and walking might aggravate it, but he was actually happy to be out and doing something. Many times during our trek he mentioned how much he liked the trail.
We saw some cool stuff along the way. Moss. This was so bright green. We have a lot of moss in our yard, too. As a matter of fact, we don't have a lawn in our back yard...it's mostly just moss. Oh, and leaves. Darn those leaves. I need to rake them...and I will. I just have to steel myself against the very likely possibility that there are snakes in them thar leaves. Ugh. Anyway...
There were lots of mushrooms
and wildly shaped trees. When Scott, who had gone up the trail ahead of me, (I had to stop to take pictures, you know) yelled back at me saying he'd found a scorpion, I was unenthusiastic to say the least. When I hurried to where he stood, I saw this:
"That's not a scorpion," I told him, more than just a little relieved. "That's a centipede."
"Oh, yeah," he said with a shrug. "I always get those two mixed up."
We pressed onward.
We saw lots of snails as we walked. I saw a sign that said there were some Southern Flying Squirrels, but, at least to my knowledge, we didn't come across any. It was a pretty thick forested area with not much light coming through the dense canopy of trees. There was a lot of rustling in the leaves above our heads and I assumed those noises were birds...perhaps not? I was hoping to see a newt, which we did not, and hoping we would not see a snake, which, thankfully we did not. We saw some regular looking squirrels...oh, and about a quadrillion mosquitoes. Those were absolutely everywhere. So thick that the soundtrack to our little forest adventure sounded a bit like this:
Smack, slap, "Ah! Ouch!" smack, swat, stomp. "Mom! Keep moving! Let's go!" Slap. And to illustrate my point, here it is in action:
The temp was a wonderful 80 degrees, but very humid. It has been raining a lot in North Carolina lately. It had down poured the night before and it was very wet inside the forest. The kids and I were dripping sweat fifteen minutes into our journey...but I think a big part of the reason we were wet was because rain water from all the plants and trees above us kept dropping on us as we walked. It felt much hotter than 80 on the trail but we live in the south now. We handled it like pros. We complained...but does it count if no one else heard it?
"Mom, hurry up and take the picture. Standing still like this, we're just a mosquito buffet waiting to happen..."
At the beginning of our walk, I was behind Mylee when I saw her suddenly jerk her head to the right while at the same time hopping far to her left. She then walked quickly forward, all the while staring at a tree as though it had bitten her. Of course I wanted to know what had happened. She told me that the tree had buzzed at her. When I studied the tree, I found a cicada. I tried to get his picture, but he wasn't feeling up to it. He buzzed, (loudly,) and then flew away. Maya, who used to be insanely afraid of bugs, has overcome her fear by about 98%. The buzzing tree, however, startled her a bit. Later on and further down the trail, Scotty spotted this empty shell of a cicada, still firmly attached to the underside of his leaf. No buzzing. Much easier to take a picture of, too.
This is what Mylee thought of the cicada.
Scott saying, "I've conquered the tree!" Did I mention the high humidity? Did I mention how hot and wet we were? Just checking....
This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. We didn't , however, go up this path. We continued on the one we'd started, wanting to see it to the end.
Here's another one of those freaky bridges. This stream that flowed beneath it was named "Meandering Stream".
We were on the trail for close to an hour, slapping, swatting and stomping the whole way. We kept following the red and then yellow arrows and eventually made our way back to the planning gardens where many workers were busily planting trees and shrubs near the Visitor's Center.
In answer to the previous question: Was our trip a bust? I'd have to say no.
While I didn't get to see any of the flowers I was hoping for, we did get out of the house for a couple of hours. We went somewhere we'd never been before, got a little exercise climbing up and down through the path and are now able to say that we experienced the botanical gardens. We got a few mosquito bites, and a tick tried to come home with me. He was clinging to my toe, but I made him stay at the garden. We were the only guests there that day so it was utterly quiet, except for our running commentary as we traversed the buggy trail.
And, If you ask the kids, it was a heck of a lot better than staying at home studying math.
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