Loose Leaf Notes

Joe and I wore the right hats for the Butterfly Rainforest at the Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

The butterflies  liked our flower-colored hats enough to land on them. They liked Joe’s lavender colored shirt too.

Butterflies weren’t the only thing flying around.

There were exotic birds flitting about and providing a background soundtrack.

The lush landscape of the living exhibit included lots of tropical trees, colorful flowering plants and waterfalls.

The common blue morpho was the most prevalent  species, the largest and the best butterfly photo-op.

Butterflies, flamingos, seashells and the ocean are a few of my very favorite things that we saw plenty of on this trip.

We almost missed this group of roosting butterflies camouflaged on a tree.

In Gainsville, we’re staying with our dear friend from the old Floyd days, Anita, who has been showing us around the city, which some call the Asheville of the South.

We had dinner at a Hari Krishna temple, where a woman came up to me and whispered in my ear. I thought she was going to say, ‘we don’t allow photography in the temple,’ but she said, ‘we don’t allow shoes,’ so I took them off.

And here is Anita and me in one of the many Gainsville thrift shops we toured and where we had a good laugh trying to get out of this chair.