What a weekend to get out and enjoy the weather. We finally had a good day to get out and see the trees bloom and smell the flowers. I decided to take my family over to Washington Monument State Park. It was only 1/2 hour away and was a nice drive in the mountains. I took my camera for some nature shots and my son took the family camera to take pictures too.This is a historical site that showcases the first erected monument to George Washington (1st President of the United States). HA - so much for that obelisk in Washington D.C., it may be MUCH bigger, but not the first. Here are some shots we took as well as some of the plates that tell about it.
What was really cool, was you could climb to the top and see the entire country side. What a spectacular view we had. I tried to do a 360 degree view for everyone and place them all together. It is not the best as I did not really work with the tones and stuff, but you get a wide view of what we saw.
Here is that shot as well as others from that vantage point. It was interesting to see all the rock chips from what I can assume were the rock quarry for the monument. My son really loved looking out as seeing the birds fly around.
Both me and my son had fun taking pictures of the butterflies, plants, vultures and a near dead Black Snake. I never expected to see so many butterflies this soon into Spring. My wife also took pictures of me getting a rock souvenir for my son. Some people even went to the edge and stacked some of the rocks which were a bit much for me to try. My wife is looking out at the far mountains - it really looks like she is on the edge, but she wasn't.
Here are some of those lovely pictures of the nature we encountered (minus the snake).
We did bring back something that none of us wanted however - a tick. I felt something crawling around my ear hours after we left while watching TV. When I pulled it off, I found it was a little tick - ewwww. Needles to say, it looks like when I go out picture taking in the fields, I need to spray myself beforehand with bug repellent.