Longwood Gardens, July 2007, Part 1 (Outdoors)

[puzzledance]

Last weekend we went on a long-awaited trip to Longwood Gardens with tamnonlinear and chibent, plus a friend from dancing. Unfortunately, kefiraahava couldn't make it this time, so we missed having her along. I hope she can come on the next trip.

This is the first of probably three batches of pictures. These were all taken outdoors.

Comments

[tamnonlinear]

The catfish are my friends!

*pets screen*

[puzzledance]

Yay, catfish!

When I was looking back at my posts about the trip to Longwood in 2005, I noticed that one of my replies to a comment I wrote, "I wish it had occurred to me to take some short videos with my camera. If I could go back and do it again, I would take videos [...]the catfish in the lake swarming around the tidbits thrown to them." I guess I forgot. Maybe I'll remember next time!

It reminds me of my college science fiction club's end-of-the-year cookout at a lake, and how we would always forget the spatula. For 3-4 years in a row. Then finally one year a bunch of people remembered to bring a spatula to the cookout. We must have had at least 5.

[tamnonlinear]

It didn't occur to me to take *any* pictures with my phone until half way through the day, and I didn't remember the video ability until the next day.

I really need to get video on the catfish once of these days.

I like the story about the spatula.

[puzzledance]

There are lots of good stories about the club. Another related story is that one year, after the cookout, a group of club members decided that it would be nice to take a walk around the lake (I wasn't there that year). It didn't look that big, after all...

So they walked, and as they thought they were getting close, they saw a long arm of the lake shooting off to the side. They kept going, and as they thought they were again getting close, they saw another long arm of the lake shooting off to the side. And it just kept happening over and over.

During one part of their trek, they had to make their way through a cornfield, with an angry farmer running after them.

By the time they made their way back to where they'd started, it had taken them 4 hours. All the other club members had left, but fortunately, one of them had driven to the park, so they were all able to get back to their dorms.

At the next year's cookout, they said, "Let's NOT walk around the lake this time."

Lantana

[unix_vicky]

Oooo, I want to hear about mammasteed and lantana. :-)

Re: Lantana

[puzzledance]

It's somewhat convoluted (are you surprised?).

She posted about her first crossword puzzle. I didn't get one of the clues, but eventually got the answer anyway by figuring out the other words. So, I looked up the word to see what the official definition was. A little while later, my sweetie looked over my shoulder and saw the word still on my screen. I explained why I had looked it up, but that I still didn't really know what it was. Sweetie started describing it, and in particular mentioned that sometimes it grows low to the ground, and sometimes it's grown almost like a tree, and that the clusters of flowers are all different colors. I said, "Wait, I think we saw those at Longwood!" I brought up the picture, and sweetie said, "Yes, that's it!"

[asmanyaswill]

There are a couple there that look tantalizingly familiar, but either there's not enough in the picture to jog my memory, or I know I've seen it before but can't place it. Phoo. (The first white flowers might be snakeroot, maybe... Cimicifuga.)

However! The purple spiky flowers (100-0014_IMG_2_purple_flowers.jpg) are liatris. The yellow flowers (100-0042_IMG_2_yellow_flowers.jpg) are celosia (gayfeather). So are their scarlet/hot pink friends (100-0053_IMG_scarlet_flowers.jpg).

This is one of those cases where I really want a non-standard index. The way I want a note-by-note index of tunes--"it goes like this, but I think it's the B part and I can't remember the A, what's the name of this one??" I've got a butterfly book that goes by color, which is nice for the fairly common ones, which is pretty much all I ever see. Flowers would be much more difficult.

[puzzledance]

Thank you! For identifying the flowers, and for commenting. I think you are right on all counts. Google image search for cimicifuga looks like what I saw. Although, Google image search tells me that gayfeather is another name for liatris (not celosia), and cockscomb is another name for celosia. Maybe that's what you meant

[jade_kadir]

Those are wonderful pictuers. Thank you for sharing them.

[puzzledance]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed them. I've just posted the next batch.

[kefiraahava]

Lovely pictures!

I wish I could have, but...next time, I definitely hope to be able to come. By then maybe I'll be closer to the Metro!*grin*

[puzzledance]

I know you had other things you needed to do. I'm sure we can arrange to go again sometime. I hope you'll be closer to the Metro, too (because I think it will make your life a lot easier in general, not just for another Longwood trip).

Next batch of pictures is posted!