St. Louis Zoo

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After our visit to the Jewel Box, we spent the rest of the day at the St. Louis Zoo. We parked in the south parking lot and noticed the animal sculptures as we made our way to the bridge that leads to the zoo entrance.

The giant tortoises were out and the smallest one was moving about. I noticed one of the larger ones had a hole in its shell; was this tortoise shot at some point in its long life?

The Reptile House was one of our early stops beginning a big loop around the zoo (starting up hill first). The lizard peeking out of a tree in its habitat was one of my favorites.

At one of our first breaks, there were large catalpa trees with the long seed pods still green. It was good to see healthy catalpa trees again; my maternal grandparents had catalpas around their home and business in the 1960s --- seeing the trees triggered fond memories.

The Flight Cage is the oldest part of the zoo; it was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. There were quite a few birds in the large mesh-enclosed area.

One of my favorites was a wood duck. Was the eye injured or is that just the way a wood duck eye looks when it is closed/half open?

Leaving the flight cage – there are mosaics of natural areas.

Cranes were in habitats with other animals. I enjoyed getting different views of the one bird as it was feeding.

In the big apes area, my camera’s zoom managed to get a gorilla in the back of the habitat…looking serious and scratching his brow.

Flamingos and other water birds enjoy lakes with islands at the zoo…visible but able to get further away from noisy crowds. The pelicans are rescued birds (i.e. are birds that have a significant enough injury that they couldn’t survive in the wild).

I enjoyed the ways the zoo uses nature themes in their structures….and that they have solar panels too!

There is a carousel. It looked to be well-maintained but not busy when we were there (hence the pictures).

Of course – there is also ‘wildlife’ in the zoo that just finds the zoo a good place to be!

We enjoyed the people watching as much as the animals at the zoo. Some children obviously were locals familiar with the zoo and enthusiastically making their way to their favorite exhibits…couples with babies in strollers (with visions of the time their child would be old enough to make requests)…families clearly on vacation…older people – sometimes with grandchildren, sometimes as couples or small groups using the zoo as an interesting (and safe) place to walk.

It was a hot day and by about 3 PM we were ready for a cool down. We retreated to our hotel for a few hours before walking to a Lebanese restaurant for an early dinner. It was a day well spent.

MD to MO with a very full car

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My car was loaded to the ceiling behind the driver’s seat after the movers left; I was relying on side mirrors and backup camera for the drive between Maryland and Missouri. The next morning, I loaded the passenger seat and floorboard (not to the ceiling), took a few pictures of the front of our Maryland house, and was away before 6:30 AM for the 1st day drive…projected to be 10 hours.

I made the usual rest stops in Maryland. The weather was excellent for driving…a comfortable temperature and dry. Once again – I appreciated adaptive cruise control…after I got acclimated driving at highway speeds again; it took me about an hour to feel comfortable going 70+ mph.

The highway through West Virginia is a pleasure – lots of great scenery and curves to make it interesting. I discovered that the extra weight of the car (fully loaded) made it more stable on the curves! On a sad note – along with deer roadkill, there seemed to be quite a few foxes; saddest of all…there were two very small fox carcasses not far apart. I noticed catalpas blooming along the highway…remembered the trees from my childhood; considered planting one in my new yard.

Kentucky is also scenic – and this time there was no traffic problems getting through Louisville into Indiana (bridge renovation closes a lane…but the traffic was light enough that everything flowed smoothly).

The hotel for the first night was in Indiana and I took a picture of at sunset from my hotel window. I parked my car where I could see it and kept checking to make sure it was OK; other people parked around me --- made the obviously stuffed car less obvious. The area is still in the eastern time (very close to the western edge of the zone) so it didn’t get dark until after 9; I closed the blackout curtains and went to bed early after the long drive.

I bought the most expensive gas of the trip in Illinois. I’ll remember when I make the next trip to fill the tank in Missouri or Indiana!

And then I was in Missouri – making very good time even though the traffic was heavier on I-44 than anywhere else along the route. The first rest stop is due to close for renovation soon so it will be a long stretch without a rest stop….we’ll have to make a stop at a fast food place instead. There was a marked difference in the type of roadkill once I got into Missouri – no deer or fox…there were a few racoons and (surprise) lots of armadillos! Evidently the animals were first seen in the state about 40 years ago and their numbers have been increasing in the southern part of the Missouri ever since; they are not seen in the northern part of the state (yet)! I learned that they often destroy yards very quickly (they root around searching for invertebrates in the soil) and are very active in the Springfield area!

On both days, I made such good time that I made up for the rest stops…arrived within minutes of what my car’s navigation system calculated first thing in the morning as I was starting the drive!

I stayed with my daughter overnight. Stay tuned for a post about the next day: walk through…closing…unloading the very full car…a first night in a new home.

Brookside Gardens – Part 1

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Our visit to Brookside Gardens last week was early enough in the day that there were not many other people around. I found quite a lot to photograph so I am spreading the narrative and images over two posts (today and tomorrow). I took a picture of a fork in the path…the only landscape picture of the morning. The gardens are in early summer garb – the greens have deepened from the paler greens of spring. The flowers on the trees this time of year are white from a distance.

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The blooming trees that I noticed were: magnolias, Asian dogwoods (the natives are already showing their green seeds), and catalpas.

We took the time to walk around the paths near the Tea House. We saw several turtles in the water…they all seemed to be Red eared sliders which is not native to Maryland.

There were Canada Geese around but no goslings. I wonder how that was managed!

I didn’t see any of the larger butterflies…just some skippers and cabbage whites. The Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit was cancelled for this year; hopefully, it will resume in 2022.

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Near the end of our walk, I took was some high key pictures of ginkgo leaves. It was a cloudy day…perfect for this kind of photography.

To be continued with tomorrow’s post….

Zooming – June 2019

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So many aspects of nature to photograph in June: flowers and butterflies, frogs and birds…bunnies.

There were photos around home or close to home…and then in Missouri and Ohio. I’ll be learning the route between home and Missouri with two more trips in July…I’ll see how different the places look a month later.

There’s beauty to be found all over if we take the time to look for it!

Road Trip Scenes

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Continuing our trek east from Springfield, Missouri, I got some pictures of St. Louis and the Mississippi River since my daughter was driving. The arch is easy to spot…not so easy to photograph driving east…probably would be easier on the highway driving west on the bridge with the Mississippi River in the foreground. The Mississippi was obviously high with no tree trunks showing along the water’s edge. A train was crossing the river on a bridge parallel to our route.

We stopped for the night in Springfield, Ohio. As we walked across the parking lot of the hotel to a restaurant, I spotted catalpas in bloom. The trees brought back memories of summer visits to my grandparents although I was always too late to see the trees in bloom. They already had their long seed pods by the time I visited. I read a book that described the blooms and then noticed them in a garden many years later. I was thrilled to see one in Ohio. It was growing near a water retention pond (so red-winged black birds and frogs provided ‘music’).

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In the same area – on a very manicured area between parking lots were sweetbay magnolias…and they were in bloom too. These smaller magnolias are great for places that would be overwhelmed by the larger magnolias like the southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).

Our timing in Ohio was near perfect for seeing both catalpas and sweetbays in bloom! It was a good finale for a long day of driving.