Americana the Beautiful - One state and wacky festival at a time

I had a scrap of paper, saved from some magazine read years ago, that said the Green Swamp Preserve in Wilmington NC is home to Venus Flytraps. In fact, they grow natively in the U.S. only on North and South Carolina. I can only affirm this via collateral and websites, as I never laid eyes on one myself.

Disappointed? Of course.
Crushed? No. Welcome to perspective, people.

Feed Me Seymour

In my imagination, the Venus Flytrap  would be the size and ferocity of the plant from the musical Little Shop of Horrors. This is not reality. They’re a few inches tall.

Shot Down in a Blaze of (un) Glory

The hiking trail claimed to be three miles round trip. This was not true.

The hiking trail started out well marked (reflective “blazes” indicated which path to follow)–after an hour-plus, the blazes disappeared and the path was overgrown. Paula don’t go where there are no blazes, you got it? This hiker turned around. Go ahead and say it, you know you want to–I’m not a trail blazer.

What trail – hiking or life – have you abandoned, and it turned out to be just fine?

A Pitcher is Worth a Thousand Words

Venus Flytraps be damned, I saw two species of pitcher plants and they are groovy as can be! These plants are also carnivorous, filling with water for bugs to drink and then GOTCHA!

View the slideshow, and click the pic to advance to the next image.

Look at What My Camera Can Do!

Got a new lens and boy is it fun! Look inside the top of this new-growth pine. And at this creepy-yet-cute spider.