Ft. Fisher on the First Day of Fall

The weather has been truly wonderful down here with skies a deep azure blue -- the perfect backdrop for the sea oats and stones on the beach at Ft. Fisher.  Ft. Fisher (and Wilmington for that matter) attained some notice because of the recent film Lincoln which talks quite a bit about those last battles in the Civil War during the first 30 minutes of the movie.  My youngest daughter's FIL was extremely intrigued by the history of this area which he read up on after his last visit.  Evidently Wilmington was (unknown to the North for much of the time) one of the main ports through which the South got their materials from foreign sympathizers.  How cool is it to live in such a historic and also beautiful area.

I know I have showed pictures of the Live Oaks before but the lines are just so beautiful and they are all  around the park.

Look at that blue sky!

This was not Photoshopped. I wasn't even sure that the camera would capture the gradation of the blue color in the sky -- not often  you take a picture of 90 per cent sky!!  I wanted inspiration for a piece I am going to make this winter using some lovely batiks I was gifted last year.

Again, I was just taking pictures of things that appealed to me.  Here were Painted Daisies (which are everywhere down here) growing through the planking leading to the gazebo.  

Another very tiny wildflower.  I thought it was in the aster family and it is -- Youngia or Hawk's-beard.  It grows year round and I think I saw it in the spring as well.