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Hilton Head Island 2019
Our next trip to HHI is coming up in less than a month, so it’s probably time I share the pics from 2019 in preparation for the upcoming one. I’m going to jump straight to the highlight of the trip, which was watching baby loggerhead turtles find their way to the ocean. (I’ve also seen that today, June 16, 2020, is World Sea Turtle Day.) Joe and I took a late night walk to the beach on the last evening and were delighted to discover a couple baby sea turtles working their way down the sand to the surf. We went back to the house to tell the family, and…
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Coastal Discovery Museum’s Butterfly Habitat Plants
Last summer we went to Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island. The entire visit was great, but my favorite part was the butterfly habitat. I photo-documented every plant whose name was unfamiliar to me (or rather nearly all the plant tags) so that I could look them up later and determine if they could be added to my own yard. Hilton Head is Hardiness Zone 8b, and Raleigh is 7b, which means that some plants may be hardy in Hilton Head but not in my yard. Many of the plants in the habitat were right over that line between 7 and 8, so they might work better as annuals.…
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Hilton Head Critters
We returned from a week at Hilton Head Island with my family, and I wanted to quickly share some of the wildlife we saw. I’ll post family pictures at a later time. We were all hoping to see large alligators, and we saw one in the water while on our bike ride to the Sea Pines Forest Preserve. However, we didn’t see them lounging around the water’s edge like I remembered from childhood. The boys and I read alligator facts and learned that they are nocturnal and sleep in the sun during the day. So where were they? Maybe they were all hiding on the private golf courses. There was…
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Roosevelt and Lamar Valley
The day between our two nights in Canyon Village, our only plan set in stone was an Old West Dinner Cookout in Roosevelt, so we decided we would all meet up around 10 am and spend the time before dinner exploring the sights from Canyons to Lamar Valley and a little north of Roosevelt. We started our day by heading to the general store for Tillamook yogurt (the huckleberry yogurt was really great) and a few other food items. The boys and I loved the general stores and looking through all the souveneir pins, and Wookie set his sights on a Yellowstone pocket watch. I personally love the Ranger Doug poster…
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Sunsets at Jackson Lake Lodge and Lunch Tree Hill
From Schwabacher Landing, Jackson Lake Lodge wasn’t too far a drive. I believe we stopped for a quick Bison viewing around Moran before finally making a left turn onto the grounds. The main lodge and lobby were stunning if only for the huge window facing the mountain range. Once checked in and unpacked, we headed back the main lodge to look into dinner. Side note, most of these hotels and lodges are not air-conditioned. The warm season is so brief with chilly night temps, it just isn’t sensible to have AC. However, the rooms did get hot during the day even in mid-June, so lying around in the room wasn’t…
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Schwabacher Landing Grand Teton National Park
Part of the excitement of this trip out west was not having every hour of every day planned out. There were several spots we wanted to make time to hit, but there was enough flexibility on our drives for impromptu stops. I’m fairly certain you could make an entire trip composed of nothing but impromtu stops in the Tetons and Yellowstone. We pulled over several times in Idaho for wildlife and Oregon Trail historic landmarks. Schwabacher Landing was a spot that grabbed our interest when we initially sketched out a loose itinerary. On the drive into the Tetons, we spotted the sign for a pull-off and, at the end of…
