Falls Lake State Park

This is a map we have hanging up on our wall. It's hanging directly to the right of me at this very moment. It has a list and location of every single state park in the state of North Carolina and we have been slowly checking off every. single. one.

Pink spots are where we've been, yellow spots are what's left to visit within 2 hrs of us

This post is all about Falls Lake State Park. 

It's about and hour away from where we live, straight highway.

This is not going to be super detailed post because we didn't explore every little section of the park. It's more like a collection of separate parks grouped together to form one park. There are seven different areas to this one park. We wanted to visit Sandling Beach but it was already closed for the winter (PS I was ticked about that considering it was about 70 degrees the day we went) so we ended up visiting Rolling View instead. If you click the link to go to the map, you'll see toward the bottom left a fishing pier, that's where we started off, then we made our own trail along the beach.

The first thing we noticed on the beach was that the water was low, like a couple hundred feet low. Then we noticed clams all over the shore. They were everywhere!

You know what clams mean? LUNCH! Animal prints started appearing all over the beach, it was fun looking at the prints and trying to figure out how long they were there for and if it was more than one animal.

Heron tracks

Charlotte drew her own version of heron tracks, I think she did a great job!

We followed deer tracks, some sort of dog tracks and racoon tracks!

Racoon's have the cutest little tracks

See all the bugs on the water? And the dark fish spots under the water?

The water had left the ground super squishy and we had a really hard time keeping Char and Lexi out of it. At one point Lexi became stuck and I caught her just before she fell down face first into the mud. Both pairs of white sneakers are now brown.

All over there were signs that the water of the lake used to be much higher than it was. There were clams on fallen trees

Dirt under trees was eroded out exposing roots

 and water has carved tree stumps into organic sculptures.

 It's a beautiful park.

Wordless Wednesday: The Princess Is In

Tanger Bicentennial Garden

The day we visited the Greensboro Bog Garden we also visited the Bicentennial Garden, they happen to be right across the street from each other! The Bicentennial Garden is the third out of four free public gardens in Greensboro we've visited, I haven't been disappointed by any of them. The Greensboro Beautiful project has done an amazing job with all of the gardens (Bog Garden, Bicentennial Garden, Arboretum, and Gateway Gardens) all three that we have been to have been breathtakingly beautiful and we are so lucky that they are free for the public to enjoy!

The Bicentennial Garden is about 20 minutes away from us and right across from the Bog Garden

Restroom at the front entrance

The view walking into the garden

Smelling the flowers

According to the Greensboro Beautiful website this garden is a popular place for weddings and photography. When we were there a senior happened to be getting her pictures taken, it was fun for the girls to watch the photographer pose her in different spots, I can imagine how in awe they'd be over a bride! The gazebo (pictured below) is where many of the weddings take place. The girls (sitting in the urn) are against the back wall of the gazebo, aren't they adorable? 

Space in front of the gazebo used for wedding guests

The whole garden has a paved walkway

See what looks like a ditch in the picture above filled with brush? It's actually a manmade stream that runs through the garden. We happened to look over into it and found a wonderful surprise, somebody had gone down into the little stream and took the time to create some land art! We found towers in three different locations throughout the garden, it was fun looking out for them.

There are quite a few statues scattered around the park 

There are benches everywhere which is awesome because the garden is very large. The benches also make for nice photo-op spots, if you have willing participants.

The flowers, trees, ground covering, shrubs, bushes, mossy stuff, plants, whatever you call them! They're all beautiful, well manicured, not overgrown, well watered, not wilty, brown or ugly. The displays were tasteful, the colors complimented each other nicely. What I'm trying to say is that the actual 'garden' part of the Bicentennial Garden are lovely!

Like my previous posts about the public gardens in Greensboro, I've ended by saying that I'd recommend anybody that lives in or visits the area should visit the gardens, this garden is no exception. If I had to choose one garden out of the three we've been to I would recommend this one, mostly because it offers a bit of everything. Trees, flowers, water, art, facilities, picnic tables, etc. So, with that being said...if you're ever in the area come visit this garden!

On your mark, get set...

Greensboro Bog Garden

We were lucky to have gorgeous weather on Sunday 9.11 so we decided to take a trip to the Greensboro Bog Garden and enjoy some peace and quiet with nature as a family. There are 4 free public gardens in Greensboro thanks to the Greensboro Beautiful project (the Bog Garden, Gateway Garden, Bicentennial Garden, and Arboretum). This is a smaller garden with more trees and bushes than flowers, there are pops of color throughout though. There are no facilities at this garden. The path is very clear and changes from dirt to a wooden boardwalk and there are smaller dirt paths that lead to some secluded places.

The Bog Garden is about 20 minutes from us

Water flows through the garden and the path leads to a small lake

This park is full of animals, we saw squirrels, ducks, geese, herons, chipmunks, and quite a few people walking their dogs. The chipmunks were like little ninjas! Just suddenly bolting out in front of us and then quickly disappearing into the leaves, I don't think the girls saw any of the chipmunks that Travis and I did. The water was full of ducks, it was duck paradise here, I've never seen so many ducks in one place! I'd love to come back when all the little ducklings are hatched, it would be a cuteness overload!

Look at all the fish!

A view of Starmount Farms Lake from the overlook

Great Blue Heron

If you take one of the smaller paths off the boardwalk it will lead you to a small memorial waterfall for the founder of the Bog Garden, Dr. Joseph Christian. There is a statue of him at the entrance of the park as well.

We really enjoyed ourselves at this garden. I definitely would recommend this park to anyone that comes to visit or lives in the area. It was clean, I didn't see any trash (there are trashcans throughout), the paths were clearly marked, nice and flat and would be easy to use a stroller on. Though there is a lot of water there are guardrails that would keep kids from falling in, some of the rails are lower in certain spots though. A few things to keep in mind when visiting this garden: dogs are allowed, there were a lot of people with dogs, the paths are wide enough for two people to pass each other but with little leeway so passing dogs will be fairly close. Also, there are no facilities, meaning, there are no bathrooms, water fountains, drink machines, etc. So pack a few drinks and your camera and come enjoy some time in this beautiful garden!