Thursday, August 4, 2016

Brookside Gardens & Wings of Fancy Butterflies



Welcome back to my road trip series!

The day before we left for home was the third anniversary of my mother's death. My sister and I had been thinking of what to do to commemorate her amazing-ness and decided to celebrate her love for flowers and gardening. She always enjoyed Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, but that would have been too long of a trip for my sister's health. We settled on a morning visit to nearby Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mom had been there with me years ago. My niece and my two youngest daughters joined us. 
































Spider webs with water droplets!




Time for the Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit! Only my youngest daughter and I went in, because my sister knew she wouldn't be able to handle the heat, and it also costs $8 for adults and $5 for kids. First, however, I bought myself a pink butterfly t-shirt at the gift store.

A leaf nest - never seen one of these before!


Big fat caterpillar!


This is just a sampling of the butterfly varieties we saw!








The blue morpho was my favorite, but they were all flying around so fast and wouldn't stay put for me to snap a clear picture. Sigh.









When you get ready to leave, a worker checks to make sure no butterfly is stowing away to escape the habitat. She checked me, but then this happened...




Such a beautiful time at Brookside Gardens. We thought of my mom constantly while we were there. It also brings back happy memories of living only a few blocks away from there 30 years ago in this forested apartment complex, and walking over there to celebrate when we found out we were expecting our first baby. 

Of course I insisted that we drive over to take a look so my daughters could see where mom and dad lived as newlyweds.



Maryland is such a beautiful state. I wish I could bring it all back home to Florida with me! 

Here are my other road trip posts so far! More to come!


Other botanical photo posts:

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