Botanical Gardens Tour - Day 2 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - Anderson Japanese Gardens, Rockford, IL

 I had 9am timed tickets to the Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, IL and a three hour drive and so I started my day early.  Fortunately, the hotel had already put out coffee and had a wrapped bagel I could grab even though breakfast wasn't quite open.  

When I arrived at the garden and stepped out of my car, I couldn't believe the weather I was experiencing.  It was 68*F with a dew point of 56*F!  Between the gorgeous weather and the fact that the gardens were almost empty and so peaceful, I could have stayed hours!

Japanese gardens don't typically have many flowers but they had a pot of the most beautiful yellow flowers.

I made some friends - These juvenile ducks were really hoping I had food!

I spent about two hours at the garden before heading to my parents house to spend the weekend.

Day Trip - Lake Kegonsa State Park and Anderson Japanese Gardens

We got up early, took advantage of the beautiful weather today, enjoyed a convertible ride, hiked, and enjoyed one of my favorite gardens.

The temperatures were in the mid 50s when we left this morning but that didn't stop us from riding top down.  A little heat on the feet and a long sleeve shirt and we were good to go.  One of our goals this summer is to visit as many different Wisconsin state parks as we can so I started a website here to document that journey.  So before we headed to one of my favorite gardens, we stopped at Lake Kegonsa State Park located near Stoughton.

With how close we used to live and how it really isn't that far from the city I grew up in, I was surprised I didn't even know it was there.  Lake Kegonsa is a good sized lake.  The park has campgrounds and some shorter hiking trails.

Here are some photos from our hike:

Our next stop was the Anderson Japanese Gardens.

And last, but not least, my husband's favorite addition to any car trip blog post I make.  Here are the stats on our trip.  We took the 2016 Mustang Convertible GT.  We stayed off interstate and ran into a number of stop signs and stoplights.