Callaway Gardens

Today we went to Callaway Gardens which was the initial reason we came to this area of western Georgia.  The gardens were great even though the weather, which happened to be warmer in Georgia earlier in February and March like the rest of the country, made the azaleas bloom earlier than normal so we only saw the end of the blooming season but it was still good.  We spent about six hours at Callaway Gardens where we were able to see pretty much everything since we took our bicycles. The gardens cover over 13,000 acres and have a variety of different plantings and exhibits.  We really enjoyed the Horticulture Center which contained a variety of tropical plants from areas all over the world.  The Cecil B. Day butterfly exhibit which opened in 1988 was originally built by the founder of Days Inn of America was also beautiful as well as very interesting.  One of my favorite exhibits was the raptor bird display where they had a variety of meat eating birds that had either been owned by humans and given up or injured in some way and the gardens ended up with them and trained them. These birds put on a show for about 30 minutes that was amazing although the Falcon named Merritt kind of had a mind of her own and wouldn't always come back as she was suppose to.

After Callaway Gardens I took a motorcycle ride to a spot on top of the mountains which was a favorite barbecue spot of Franklin D. Roosevelt when he visited Warm Springs, Georgia.  The view from the mountain top was awesome.  After my ride we did chicken on the grill and watched some TV.

Below are today's pictures.  I hope it's not over kill.

These were taken inside the Horticulture Center

The butterfly building



These first three photos show butterfly's being born.





This butterfly is bright blue when it opens up.  This is the under side that you see here.



This is the one that is brown on the underside

The Victory Garden South at Callaway Gardens used to be on Public TV but I am not sure if it still or not.  Here they grow all kinds of vegetables and fruits.

This starts the final exhibit which was the meat eating birds they called the raptors which included a vulture, owl, hawk, and falcon.  They would have these birds fly over the heads of the audience and they would come within inches of peoples heads flying from the back to the front.  The falcon would take off and fly around the lake and would sometimes land on a tree limb and rest before returning.  One time at a previous demonstration she took off and didn't come back.  She was later found by someone in Birmingham, Alabama.  They now have telemetry on her so they can track her if they need to.

These are from my trip down the road from the state park on the motorcycle to the top of the mountain  where FDR would have picnics.