Day 176

This morning, we woke in Myrtle Beach, SC to a bright sun shine over the ocean.

We decided to go to Brookgreen Gardens, to see their beautiful landscape, butterflies and animals.

Monarch caterpillar chewing on the stalk of a milkweed plant. Only one leaf remained, of 30 plants.

Monarch caterpillar

Moss on one of the oldest oak trees

As we were about enter the first aviary with our guide, he pointed out a copperhead snake that was trying to escape us. I was surprised at how non-violent this very poisonous snake was.

In and outside of the aviary were many of these regional birds. I like the reflection this one casts on the water.

In the butterfly house, were a few butterflies. They were not very active, because by the time we got there, the rain had started.

This is a freshly emerged Monarch butterfly next to it's cocoon. If you look closely at the other two cocoons, you will see wings.

Male cardinal

Female cardinal

Storm clouds over the ocean

Day 175

Today, we left Orlando, FL for Myrtle Beach, SC. This is a long drive, so I slept most of the time. While awake in the car, I took a few photos of the sky, which looked great with the bright sun.

The straight lines across the sky are from plane exhaust. The more vertical ones are natural.

Went we got to Myrtle Beach, we changed for dinner into something nicer than traveling clothes and headed for the beach. We walked along the beach to our dinner destination.

This bee was dead in the sand.

We found 3 dead jellyfish. This one looked the most like a jellyfish.

This broken conch shell was among the thousands of broken shells that were left in huge piles on the shore. I can only assume that the tide brings in huge amounts of shells nightly and leaves them there as it goes out.

Since we are on the east coast, the sun rises over the water and sets across the land...unless you are farther down in Florida on it's west coast. I took this photo through the window of the hall way to our room. We were on the 19th floor. I'm not sure why the glow of the sun created a large blurred circle and a small concise circle, but it's very neat to see. Also, if you look closely, you can see rays radiating from the sun

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.