That Georgia Biologist

Welcome back to my Florida series! My grandparents and I really enjoyed visiting McKee Botanical Gardens there in Vero Beach while I was there. Such a pretty place with all the flowers, ponds, trees, and other landscaping! So without further adieu...here's photographic proof of round two!! ;) McKee Gardens was originally much bigger, and a major tourist stop back in the day before Disney. The land was put up for sale and sold to a developer, but concerned citizens banded together to purchase a small portion of the gardens and restore them. I'm so glad they did so!!  A Brown Anole!  Such beautiful flowers! I think I've found the first piece of furniture for my new office!! ;) To be continued...

Welcome back to my Florida series! Today I would like to share pictures of some of the places my grandparents and I visited around their hometown of Vero Beach. We've visited a lot of these sites many years in a row, so it's always fun to go back! Living the life! A beautiful county park provided nice views of the Indian River. Veterans' Island is also a pretty cool spot. In less than three months I traveled literally from sea to shining sea. Not bad for a poor, broke grad student :D The other spot we went was Round Island park, I believe that's what it was called. Some beautiful lakes and boardwalks, complete with some pelicans and grandparents to boot! ;) Until next time! To be continued...

Today I had so much fun! A few weeks ago some of my friends, one of whom I had taken to Warren Dunes last month, asked if we could do another photography run sometime. Well of course! And since we had already spent some time at the beach/dunes, I wanted to see if there was another environment close by we could do photography in...like maybe hike in the woods. Thing is, southwest Michigan is mainly farmland, so it's hard to find woods. But after a little looking, I found a place called Dowagiac Woods Nature Sanctuary nearby - free entrance, trail in the woods, and supposed to be great for wildflowers. Due to our long-lasting winter, I figured there probably wouldn't be tons of wildflowers out yet, but we could at least have a fun hike. My friends agreed and we all hopped in my car this afternoon. It turned out to be way better than I could have ever hoped for! It was the perfect temperature, and pileated woodpeckers and chickadees were calling in the distance. The trail wa