Turner to Cezanne 4 '09

Turner to Cezanne

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The National Museum Wales is known for having one of the finest Impressionist art collections in Europe. Sent the Columbia Museum of Fine art, and four other US Museums,  an extraordinary group of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings that is renowned for its beauty and quality. The collection is exceptionally strong in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and includes masterpieces by, among others, Cézanne, Corot, van Gogh, Monet, Daumier, Manet, Millet, Pissarro, Renoir, Turner and Whistler. The Turner to Cézanne exhibition  features 53 stunning works of art, seen together in the United States for the first time.   We found it  remarkably instructive.

For more information on the Museum see

http://www.columbiamuseum.org/

Congaree April 18 '09

Saturday, April 18th, saw us heading off  to the Congaree Swamp National Park.   The Congaree NP Forest is rated as being one of the top ten “ Old  Growth Forest” in the world.   For those of you who are not familiar with the term, “old growth” refers to a forest which is tall enough that its upper canopy has shaded out the under-story vegetation, leaving the forest floor relatively open to view.

Open Under story

Dogwood in Bloom

In North America, only the conifer forests of the Western U.S. coastal region are substantially taller. (E.g. the California Sequoia forests, and the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula are taller).  East of the Mississippi, just a few patches of white pine and some cove forests in Great Smoky Mountains NP are taller. When compared to all of the world's forests, Congaree is among the tallest. 

The average canopy height is over 100ft tall.  Congaree has one of the tallest temperate deciduous forests in the world, and is taller than the old-growth forests found in Japan, the Himalayas, Southern South America and all of Eastern Europe. 

That being said, we were still startled by how different this forest is than any other we have ever visited.     

 For one thing it is a true swamp.  The Congaree River snakes its way through much of the Park.  Much of the forest is regularly flooded by the overflow of the Congaree River.  Many of the trees in the flooded wet sections of the forest are bald cypress. 

 

Bald Cypress

  (If you look at the dark moss around the lower trunk of the tree you can tell how high the flooding reaches on the tree.) 

  Because of the flooding, there are many natural lakes called “Oxbows” within Congaree National Park, which used to be bends in the Congaree River. Some formed thousands of years ago.   

The reflections in these areas are beautiful

Fields a Bloom 4 '09

Fields a Bloom

Not the least of the pleasure of our weekend trip was the drive too and from Columbia.  It feels like all of South Carolina is bursting into spring bloom. 

All of the roads are lined with red clover and yellow buttercup.  The unplowed farmlands are a mass of pink and blue wildflowers.  Dogwood and wild azaleas are everywhere in the woods.  Even the pine trees’ bark is colorful… Yes it really does have a pinkish - purplish maroon tint which is even more striking against the bright yellow green of new spring growth. 

Mink at the Huntington Beach SP 4 '09

HBSP Mink

Guess what we spotted while we  were on our morning walk at Hunting Beach SP?

That's right it is a mink. 

I didn't even  know that mink live in the low country before I saw this one.

I showed the park ranger my photo and she said there are two pair of them in Huntington Beach State Park.,  One pair lives along the causeway, and the other near where I saw this one hunting along the breakwater rocks between Murrells Inlet and Litchfield