Our Trip to Airlie Gardens

On Tuesday dad and the girls took a trip to Airlie Gardens, a beautiful collection of gardens just about an hour down the road.  The weather on Tuesday was wonderful for a walk outside.  The first thing they saw was the biggest live oak in North Carolina.  It was huge and 200 years old!  It was covered in a draping moss.  There were lots of live oaks scattered around the gardens, and lots of that moss.   They also saw the Minnie Evans sculpture garden and bottle chapel, a little 'house' made creatively out of glass bottles and little pieces of shells, rocks, and glass.  They visited the butterfly house, which held lots of monarch butterflies, as well as other butterflies and moths.  The walk around the gardens took about an hour to complete.  It winded around a beautiful swamp/pond that had swans, an old chapel, through pine trees, live oaks, and lots and lots of flower beds.  Some of the beds are permanent, some change seasonally.  It was kept up amazingly.  Sometimes the path was pressed concrete, sometimes pavement, some of it was a dirt path, and sometimes it was grass.  It was a lot of fun to visit.