A Day in the Park

Well, it really wasn't a day, rather a couple of hours.

When the kid got home from school, I was a little antsy and wanted to go for a ride. I have my father's genes and have to jump in the car to explore every so often. When we were growing up, we were always taking road trips. The weekends were full of drives to the Chesapeake Bay or to the shores of the Atlantic. In the summer months, we all would pack up and hit the road to points South--mainly Georgia and Texas where my parents' families were. To this day, I find exploring the roads comforting and rewarding. When I grow up, I want to be quite the bohemian and travel, travel, travel and learn more about everything everywhere!

For the day though, we decided to stay in our own back yard, so to speak. We first thought we would go to our local park right down the road. That road seemed to take us to other places unknown. We just kept on driving South on a little road to see what we may find.

There were beautiful farms along the way; and the kid snapped a lot of pictures for me to go through after we returned home. Look at how green everything is. It's that lovely spring green that I just adore, everywhere!

We drove through small-town America as we made our way South.

We found a sign that pointed us towards Henry Horton State Park and so that is where the car took us. I can't tell you how excited we were when we found the Duck River flowing through the park. Of course, we had to park and go for a nice walk down to the river.

We stirred up a lot of newly hatched dragonflies once we hit the water's edge. They were amazing, newly formed wings fluttering about. Sweet. You can see the clouds rolling in as we sat watching the little fellers flying around.

The water was so green. That spring green again, I suppose.

It started to sprinkle a little as we sat on the rocks. It looks like a little moisture would be appreciated here.

A weed. But a pretty weed.

A path less taken.
Almost spent redbud. Why do they call it red bud when it's purple. Why do they call purple finches purple when they're actually red? Hmmmm.

Moss.

One of my favorite trees on earth, dogwood. I still associate it with home in Virginia.

By the time we made it back to the car, it was practically 7 pm! The hub was calling to see where we were. Of course he didn't bat an eye when I told him we were about 45 minutes south exploring. He's become accustomed to my being found in odd places at any given time.

Today, the kid and I are heading downtown to visit our Earth Day celebrations. It's kind of drizzly, but that's ok. Perhaps that will eliminate some of the pollen in the air (and people at the fair). Allergies are hitting the kid this year. Poor soul, got my genes in that department.