Warm Showers in Miami!

As we flew into Miami this morning there were some very dark clouds gathering.  Thunderstorms were forecast.

(Do you like the grizzly bear on the winglet of the Frontier  Airlines plane?).

In breaks in the cloud we could see the Everglades below us.

We picked up a hire car and headed for our hotel along sunny streets lined with tropical trees.  It is very warm as well as very humid - no wonder everything looks so lush and green.

The view from our 11th floor room is interesting as the weather changes..

When it rains it really rains, like a warm shower.

One of the reasons for travelling to Miami today was that the Dale Chihuly exhibit in the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is illuminated on Thursday night.    We purchased a larger umbrella and set off..

It is a beautiful tropical garden covering 83 acres - the glass exhibits are spread over a smaller area of 20 or so acres.  

We were in fact very lucky with the weather - no rain, just very hot and very, very humid.

The blown glass sculptures were beautiful in the garden setting.  Here are just a few pictures...

Some of the flowers and trees were also quite spectacular..

As night fell the glass sculptures were definitely the stars of the show..

Run for the Roses!

The Kentucky Derby, the famous horse race which is also known as the 'Run for the Roses', is run on Saturday 2 May.

The Women's Club is running a BBQ event that day at Reston Golf Club, culminating with viewing the race on TV.

As I am not going to be there, I thought that I would make and donate some table decorations.

After a trip to the Bargain Loft for a series of vases and bunches of assorted artificial flowers, the decorations are done.

The great thing is, they all fit into one sturdy box ready for delivery to the Event Organiser before I travel home to the UK on Monday...

Freight Traaaaaaaaaaaaaain

When we visited Harper's Ferry on Saturday we saw a number of freight trains passing through.

We saw the first one when we were walking across the bridge, it was on an adjacent line and heading for a tunnel which was built in 1893 and widened in 1931.

Like many of the freight trains we have seen here, it was very long indeed, taking around 3 minutes to pass us, travelling at about 15 miles an hour, David calculated that it was about 3/4 mile long!  

It finally disappeared into the tunnel.

We walked to the railway station - a refurbished building dating to 1893.  (The above picture thanks to Wikipedia)

During the week there is a commuter service from here into Washington Union Station but at the weekend it is just the very long freight trains passing through.

This final picture was taken just as a huge extra-height train was coming into the station.  For some reason I decided to video it but, you will be glad to know, I can't attach video to the blog!

Trees in Bloom

This lovely cherry blossom is in a garden just along the road (or it was, after this evening's thunderstorms it may not look so good..,)

This morning I photographed these rather lovely cones..

..and presumably these are the flowers which will form the next crop of cones..

On Saturday in Harper's Ferry, I photographed some dark pink blossom..

This seemed to be cherry blossom too.

The inappropriately named red bud trees (actually pink to purple) are now coming into flower in gardens and on roadsides.  They are very pretty trees.  The blossom comes before the leaves and grows directly out of the branches and twigs.

Bluebell Woods?

On the shuttle bus from the Visitor Centre into Harper's Ferry yesterday we could see lovely fresh green woodland with a carpet of blue beneath.

Closer inspection revealed that although the flowers were blue and bell shaped they were not bluebells as such.

They had a very different leaf and different shape.

We also saw from the bus that there was some interesting wildlife in a disused and dilapidated section of canal alongside the river..

Impossible to see in this picture but there were several different types of turtle in the murky water..

This is a Snapping Turtle - quite large - up to 2ft from tip of tail to nose.  Most of the turtles we have seen don't have large tails like this and it was a very ridged and dragon-like tail.

The other turtles that we saw - there were quite a few - included a Painted Turtle which was much smaller .. Maybe 8 or 9 inches long..

.. and an Eastern Box Turtle.. Up to about a foot long.

They seemed to be enjoying the slow bake in the sunshine.