First here are some pictures from the Huntsville Botanical Garden.
They had a beautiful butterfly garden that included a pond with turtles, a box turtle, and of course lots of flowers and butterflies.
The gardens had a Chinese Lantern Festival the week before and were still working on taking down many of their sets. Here are a few that were still set up.
There were plenty of beautiful flowers blooming as well.
We then had a great lunch at Viet Cuisine before heading to the Beaverdam Boardwalk, a piece of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. This is a short boardwalk trail through the Tupelo Swamp, home of many Water Tupelo trees. The trail is full of wildlife (if you look closely for it) and ends at a small river. We saw a lizard, two aquatic turtles, a frog, three water snakes, neon blue bees, a butterfly, numerous tadpoles, and heard so many different bird calls. It was such a neat hike and our only disappointment was that we didn't see any alligators (the sign alluded to the possibility of alligators).
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| aquatic snake |
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| tadpoles |
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| turtle |
After being out in the heat all day (it was 93*F when we were at the boardwalk), we were ready to head home and jump in the pool to cool off.
