Yearly Archives: 2015

As autumn approaches peak near Asheville, the Blue Ridge Parkway at times becomes a very long and narrow parking lot. Drivers jockey for spots in the turnouts offering views down into the valleys, or find their own precarious perches in non-official parking ledges to capture the hopefully not literal to […]

I am back home and chasing fall. October is the peak of color somewhere every day in the southern Appalachian mountains, and part of the fun is looking for it. Some years it is like hide and seek, with only single fiery trees in hidden forests. Other years there is […]

While in NY I visited an old friend who lives in Yorktown Heights. I grew up in Westchester, and it was fun to explore some of my old stomping grounds with her. We stopped by Lasdon Park and Arboretum in Katonah. A three acre stand of American chestnuts was discovered […]

Though my dad was born in Brooklyn, I spent my years in NYC living in various parts of lower Manhattan. I decided to visit Brooklyn, exploring a fantastic real estate investment. If you have the money, I have a really wonderful bridge to sell you!!

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30-acre oasis in the middle of Atlanta. Except for occasional traffic noise, it is easy to imagine being in the middle of a forest, or field. There are indoor displays of orchids and other tropical plants, and the grounds are full of wonderful trees […]

Less than a 20-minute drive from my home is an amazing world class Miocene fossil site discovered in 2000 during road construction. A new species of red panda was discovered here, and research suggests that unlike the modern red panda bamboo wasn’t a major part of its diet. Several specimens […]

This flower is endemic to granite outcrops in Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas. These are unusual and widely distributed habitats, which are home to many rare plants. These flowers thrive on sunshine and intermittent drought, growing at times literally out of the rock. It is officially named Porter’s Sunflower, for […]

Stone Mountain in Georgia is almost 1700 feet tall, twice as high as the surrounding area. It is made primarily of granite formed from magma that came up from deep in the earth’s molten center. It is a rock version of an iceberg, in some spots going 9 miles deep. […]

Flying to Georgia I was struck by the mist forming a thick veil over all the mountains. The trees were only visible near the mountaintops, islands in a sea of clouds. Without seeing evidence of towns or homes, it seemed a very wild place. It almost looked like a remote […]