We drove west and north, out to the Twin Arches trailhead. This was a no-brainer when I was thinking of places to go. I had hesitated to just tell them, "This is what we're doing," but their reaction was, "Oh good, she already knows what we're doing." So it worked out well.
Twin Arches was gorgeous, as always.
Here's Amanda, demonstrating just how long the staircase is.
Blueberry bushes always turn such a pretty red.
Still green out there - I'm hoping to get back here one more time once the colors change.
Joanne set the timer on her camera to get a photo of the three of us, and I got one of her rushing over before it went off!
Joanne and me under the South Arch.
I know I've taken this view before, but I really like how this one turned out! The tentacled monster outside its lair...
It's so much fun getting to show other people these amazing places.
There's some fall color! The black gum trees are really starting to look pretty.
This is probably golden-aster.
This purple aster is about three times larger than life but I had to showcase the tiny ant and slightly less tiny fly-disguised-as-a-bee!
This is either foxglove or false foxglove. Obviously they look pretty similar!
The next section of our day trip was the scenic drive that I've done one other time - up through Daniel Boone National Forest and across the Yamacraw Bridge at the north end of the park.
The flowers that I kept stopping to take pictures of last time were mostly finished, so we made better time. We did stop at the overlooks, of course!
Just off to the side from this view was a big patch of thistles, and it was surrounded by a cloud of butterflies.
I cannot believe I managed to get two on one flower! They weren't there long before they jostled each other off.*
*Disclaimer: I have no way of knowing that those are the same two butterflies.
Lizard on the wall! This one didn't stick around for long.
It was a long drive on the gravel road to get to the Hemlock Grove picnic area, so it was nice to get out for a while and walk down to the creek.
We had planned to stop and take pictures of the old railroad bridge before we got to the Yamacraw bridge, but first I pulled off at the wrong place, and then drove right past the spot we were looking for! We didn't realize until it was too late to turn around.
This is a picture of the wrong place - a smaller creek that flows into the river not far away.
Our final stop was Yahoo Falls. I had forgotten how long it took to get there - it's a lot of winding, narrow, gravel roads, so I had to take it slow.
This is a great picture of the partridge berry - you can really tell that it came from two flowers combined!
Of course we took the short side trail to the overlook.
We could see a couple of boats on the river! Kayaks or canoes - we couldn't quite tell.
These rock walls look so much bigger with a person there to show the true scale!
Yahoo Falls. (That's Yay-hoo, not Yah-hoo!)
Under a smaller drip, the moisture has led to a lot of plants growing on the rock - mostly liverwort and a few ferns
Liverwort usually grows flat on rocks. It got its name because people thought that one type of liverwort looked like a human liver - and therefore should be used as medicine to treat liver complaints.
That faint stripe on the right is the falls. There wasn't a whole lot of water coming over, but I got splashed pretty well standing next to it!
Finally we headed back to the car and began the long drive back out to the highway.
We made better time than I had anticipated, so we arrived back in Oneida just after 4 p.m. We all wanted to eat out, so we had an early supper, then headed to my place for board games and cartoons. Once it got dark we drove back to the campground, headed out to an open space, and lay down on a tarp to look at the stars. We've got a wonderful dark sky here, and even though it wasn't even that late yet the stars were spectacular. I need to remember to do that more often.
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