Since our last posting, we have spent some time on the Blue Ridge Parkway to get to campgrounds in the cooler air, visited more national historic sites and a national park, and a wonderful topiary garden.
Here are the highlights:
This national park in South Carolina preserves the largest remnant of old-growth floodplain forest in the U.S.
One of the big trees
The boardwalk trail through the swamp
Near Bishopville, SC we visited Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden. After a 3-minute lesson on topiary and using "ugly" and poor quality plants that were going to be thrown away, Mr. Fryar began creating this garden at his house in the 1980s. Here it is today:
One of the "sailing ship" junipers along one side of his property
Fishbone tree
hedge along the driveway
the size of a dinner plate
Mr. Fryar also creates sculptures and fountains out of "junk"
Mr. Pearl Fryar
Kings Mountain National Military Park, SC - site of a battle crucial to the outcome of the Revolutionary War
from the Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia
You may remember that we drove the entire Parkway in Fall 2015.
Cooler nights up here for camping - we woke up to 52 degrees.
Natural Tunnel State Park, Virginia
A stream carved a tunnel and a railroad was built alongside it.
Moravian Falls
I learned that Mr. Sandburg was much more than a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.
The Sandburgs home in Flat Rock, North Carolina
Descendants of the champion goats raised by Mrs. Sandburg
Tomorrow we head to Kerr Reservoir in south central Virginia where we will be staying through the Independence Day holiday. (We will also be celebrating Canada Day on July 1 with a group of geocachers.) We hope all of you have a safe and fun-filled July Fourth.
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