Day 417

Today, John and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art while the Scalin family headed to a different museum and the Eastern State Penitentiary. On the way to our destination, we came across a small butterfly garden. There were two wrens being noisy. After observing them, I realized it was a mother bird feeding a baby bird bread. Behind them were tall lilies and even taller sky scrapers.

Also in the garden were a few beautiful pigeons. The photograph doesn't capture the irridecent purple and teal of their wings.

Later, before we headed to dinner with the Scalin family, rain started pouring down. This is our hotel window.

The rain had stopped by the time we returned back to our hotel room. The clouds were breaking up, which allowed the full moon to shine through.

Day 330

Today, my husband drove our daughter and me to Philadelphia, PA for the weekend. After checking in early and a nap, we walked around the city. We eventually took a trip across the river to Camden, NJ. They have a great aquarium there. However, you won't see any photos of aquarium creatures, because that would be cheating.

Along our walk, we went to Rittenhouse square. We watched the pigeons walk around and a guy balance things on his chin.

We stopped in another park along the way. There were many of these little birds on the ground, eating.

While walking, John choose the aquarium as our destination and found out we could take a ferry from Philly to the aquarium in Camden. The aquarium is along the water, so the ferry ride is straight across from Penn's Landing.

Along the bridge to Penn's landing, there are beautiful flowers.

The bridge goes over the interstate.

Penn's Landing holds concerts during the summer. This area had two pergolas. Resting on top of them, were many pigeons.

After the aquarium, I spotted this monarch butterfly flying from flower to flower. 

Day 174

Today was a long day. We went to Disney Animal Kingdom and Disney Magic Kingdom. I took the most photos at the zoo, since it has the most animals and plants.

Bamboo

Palm

Duck floating on a small pond full of fish

Duck

Hippopotamus

Vulture

Meerkat 

Male gorilla with baby

Yellow flower petal on metal of swinging bridge

Silverback gorilla

Giraffe

Butterfly

Flower in butterfly garden

Komodo dragon

Giant flying fox bat

Flower buds in leaf pod

Huge bird

The world's largest pigeons. They were about the size of turkeys. This is a male and female making a nest. They are so used to people, from interacting with them in the aviary, that the male picked up nest material a few inches away from me.

Parrot maybe?

This might be a bird couple or an adult and junior bird.

Birdy belly

This anteater was taking a shower. It was scrubbing it's self and really enjoying the water. This was an unexpected sight.

Turtle

Pink flowering vine

After lunch, we went to the Magic Kingdom. By the time we had walked around for a few hours, I was exhausted. I didn't take a lot of photos, while we were there.

Sun rays through the clouds

After about an hour at the park, rain started pouring. After it had stopped, these white birds were standing on the canopies for vendors.

Yellow flower near the dock to go to Tom Sawyer's island.

Lizard

Rabbit

Pink rose

Sunset

Sunset from the boat headed back to the cars.

Day 171

Today, we drove to Saint Augustine, FL and to Orlando, FL.

There are many marshes along the southern coast.

The clouds were fluffy and abundant. Yet, the weren't any storms, which is different than where we live.

While walking around historic Saint Augustine, I took lots of photos. There are lot of private gardens by shops and a fort to explore.

Oak tree with Spanish moss

Roses 

Vines growing on a wall in a garden

Sun through the canopy of trees in a garden

Ferns

Flower box

These were in the garden of Columbia.

These white flower vines were growing along the front of a cafe.

We went to explore the fort. This is the a view of the river beside the fort wall.

These are plants growing the the top of the fort wall. You can walk and sit on the wall. The wall is made from cement and oyster shells.

There were a few plants growing in the shallow water along the river.

There were pigeons on the fort wall.

The tide was crashing along the sand of the fort wall.

After sitting on the fort wall for a bit, we walked across the field on the way to our car.

There were a few pretty wild plants growing.

When we got to Orlando, we went in search of food. We went to Downtown Disney. I was exhausted by now and the overwhelming amount of people took the last of my energy. I relaxed outside while John and Alex got dinner.