The Great Smoky Mountains: Rainbow Falls Trail

Here are the pics I took on the trail to Rainbow Falls. Since I stopped so many times to take pictures, I threw off the "hiking groove" and didn't make the final destination. There was only one more mile to go!

Click on the slideshow to gain access to full sized pics.

The Great Smoky Mountains: Clingmans Dome

For the 4th of July holiday, I took a trip to see the Great Smoky Mountains with my family. We took up residence in Sevierville, Tennessee and Dollywood was only a few miles away. Besides the rollercoasters, dinner shows, go carts and mini golf courses, etc., the best attractions were the hiking trails available in the national park (map). It rained just about anytime we decided to drive through the park.

It was cloudy on the way to Clingmans Dome Bypass Trail. The steep and 0.5 mile paved trail lead up to a concrete structure.

It was a cloudy and misty day at Clingmans Dome.

Here's a pic looking up from under the structure.

A spiral walkway rose in elevation on the way to the lookout point. Birds could be heard in the trees.

Unfortunately, the trees in the Smoky Mountains are suffering from acid rain pollution.

On the way back to the car, the rain poured down hard and some thunder could be heard. It wasn't ice-cold rain, though.

Pond Scum

The pond was emptied of its contents yesterday morning. This included two small Koi fish, bulls' tongue, cattails, yellow irises, penny wort, umbrella plants, water lilies, parrot's feather, lizard's tail, water hyacinths, mosquito fish, pumps, submersible lights and a quarter ton of algae. The pond liner was scrubbed free of algae. It took about 4 hours of labor. Then, the plants were divided and re-potted. There's a "mini" lily variety that has never bloomed, so I'm considering selling or trading it in our neighborhood's block garage sale. I trimmed off all the growth to teach it a lesson.

Here's a sample of what's going on in the pond.

San Diego County Fair 2009

The theme for this year's San Diego County Fair is "Music Mania".

After getting a fill of my first fried Twinkie (didn't they used to come packed in pairs?! No?!), Zucchini Weeni (VERY GOOD!!!), pizza (bleh) and a chocolate-dipped ice-cream cone the night before, I went back the next day and took a few pictures in the garden area. There were plenty of creative plant arrangements to keep your eyes busy for hours.

San Diego Zoo

I snapped a few pics at the San Diego Zoo the other day. It was a fine day to take advantage of the zoo pass and check out the newly opened Elephant Odyssey exhibits.

There was an archeologist's tar pit exhibit where eerie music played in the background. The dark water, mimicking natural tar, levels would fall and reveal a collection of ancient bones lying underneath.

A couple of Columbian mammoth statues and other ancient animal statues were fun for kids' interaction.

This almost looks like an enclosure setup for Jurassic Park, except the creature models in this exhibit only go back 12,000 years ago. And, of course, the live animals in this enclosure will probably include giraffes or more elephants.

This Teratorn statue looks quite sinister with a bit of HDR photography added. This old "thunderbird" was very, very big!

Red Flowered Cactus

This cactus put on a show today with several red flowers.

I wonder why it is so difficult to take pictures of very red things?

Last year, this plant was infested with tiny, white mealy bugs. I noticed the bugs before, but they usually come and go on their own. Several months ago, though, I took the time to manually remove them with a pair of tweezers. I guess my work paid off as this seems to have resulted in more blooms this time.

This other pot of the same cactus was growing, neglected, underneath the shade of some bushes. The plant seems to have grown longer in its search for more sunlight. And, the flower blooms are going to happen much later than the other plant.

Bird House

I picked up a Wren House Kit at The Birdwatcher store in the town of Julian today. It was $1 less for the kit than the pre-assembled house.

It was so easy to put together.

Up in the pine tree the bird house goes.