Our (the cats and me) first major stop was Huntington Beach State
Park <http://www.huntingtonbeachstatepark.net/>. I’ve done a lot of walking on the beach (some of it barefooted – even if
it is cold) and along the fresh and saltwater marshes. It has been in the 60s during the days and sunny.
Since I’ve been part of Friends of Steele Creek
Nature Center and Park, I was really interested in the Nature Center here. I
went to the daily “Feeding Frenzy,” which was a 1 ½-hour-long talk and demonstration
given by a park ranger – feeding different animals, including horseshoe crabs, alligators,
and lots of different fish. We even got to handle the horseshoe crab.
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| Nature Center |
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| Park Ranger Talking |
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| Horseshoe Crab, Stingray, and Mollusk (of some sort) |
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| Nature Center From the Marsh |
The land for this park was donated by Archer and Anna Huntington, and their summer home, Atalaya, is here on the grounds <http://www.huntingtonbeachstatepark.net/atalaya.html>. A docent gives free tours on the weekends; but, since I was looking on a Friday, I paid $4 for a "tour on tape" -- and it was well worth it. I learned so much more from the tape that people walking through and reading the signs on the walls didn't learn.
Across the
street (US Hwy 17) is Brookgreen Gardens <http://www.brookgreen.org/>, the property of which was also
donated by the Huntingtons. There isn't much blooming this time of the year, but that didn’t matter –
there are more than 1,700 sculptures done by more than 400 artists, one of whom was Anna Huntington) in the
gardens to look at.
Tomorrow will be my last full day here, and I haven’t
decided which park I will go to next. On my to-do list is to find a post office. They had stones and shells for sale in the park gift shop, and I couldn't resist buying some for my uber-talented, jewelry-making grandson, Josh.
Thanks for reading.
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