Strange’s Florist hosted the 12th annual Virginia Orchid Society Orchid Show. I went last year (after going to Longwood), thinking it was just going to be a few orchids. I didn’t take my camera (I know, gasp!!), and I was completely wrong about show! There were so many orchids! And so many species I had never seen before, or even knew could exist!

So when I saw it on the calendar again this year, I made sure to take my camera! It did seem a little smaller this year, but it still had so many pretty orchids!!

I found this one at the show and it was so different than the others, I just had to add it to my office windowsill :)

And this is the whole collection!

You can see a post of my first orchid here.

I love orchids!!

Because I missed a trip to Fossil Beach the last time I went to this park, I had to make another trip! I took a Friday off from work to hopefully avoid the crowds and there was hardly anyone there.

The trail was very nicely kept up through a forest of lots of different trees.

Looks like this one was struck by lightning.

A ghostly tree!

Finally made it to the beach!

But some of it was closed because of erosion. I have no doubt that is where all of the cool fossilized sharks teeth are, but I obeyed the law and kept my distance.

I knew that the trail was going to be about 1.5 miles round trip, but what I didn’t know was that there was a really steep hill. The way down wasn’t so bad, but the way up was a little tough. You can’t really tell from this angle, but that is a hill. I should have taken it from the bottom looking up, but this is the top, looking down.

I didn’t go in the visitors center, but there is a huge field behind it where you can view the Potomac River.

Went back to the other beach to look for more sea glass, and it looked like a whole different park. There were maybe two people there, as opposed to the 200+ the last time I was there!

While I did find one small piece of sea glass, but no fossils, it was still a very nice day!