Spring Flowers at Thunder Bay Resort (Hillman Michigan)

May 2014 found us returning to Hillman, Michigan, home of Thunder Bay Golf Resort, and a place we've called our summer home three times before. This is such a beautiful part of the country! I never tire of the green rolling countryside, dense forests, the beautiful music from the songbirds, and the flowers that grow throughout the resort. Although we've been here in years past, the early Spring blooms had already come and gone before our mid May arrivals. Not this time! Spring dallied a little this year, and we were lucky enough to get here just in time to see all the early bloomers. We were treated to a plethora of daffodils, forget-me-nots, jonquils, yellow stars, and hyacinths, to name just a few.

Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens

It's hard to say whether waterfalls or botanical gardens are more abundant in Hawaii, but it would be a shame to come all this way and not take advantage of both. Our first botanical garden visit this trip was to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens and was time well spent. The 40-acre valley is a natural greenhouse, protected from buffeting trade winds and blessed with fertile volcanic soil. Nature trails meander through a true tropical rainforest, crossing bubbling streams, passing several waterfalls, and encompassing ocean vistas along the rugged Pacific coast. With over 2,000 species of plants, representing more than 125 families and 750 genera, it was not a surprise that we came home with over 200 pictures on our camera. It was almost impossible to choose which ones to include in this post, but I managed to keep the count under 30!

The Flowers of Cannon Beach

Beautiful and colorful flowers of every imaginable hue seemed to be everywhere you turned in Cannon Beach. They were just too gorgeous to walk by without taking pictures, so we ended up with a wonderful, albeit virtual, bouquet of The Flowers of Cannon Beach. Enjoy!