From the Birmingham Botanical Gardens

We were anchored in Birmingham for the winter, which offered plenty of time for exploring the many corners of the city. The last adventure of the stay, which makes it the first adventure of the new travel year, just a couple days before our departure for the high seas. The majority of the garden was dormant, despite the warm, spring like weather that we have been having, however, the camellias were in full bloom.

As we wandered through the gardens, we discovered a strange fact. While the crew smiles and laughs all day long, they cannot, for some reason, produce a picture worthy smile on demand. However, they have truly mastered the pirate grimace.

It took about seven tries of setting the camera on automatic to get this picture with minimal pirate scowls. 

The Baby tried to demonstrate proper technique, but they just didn't get it. 

Note the Baby's perfect smile. 

So I let the First Mate take the camera and document our trip to the gardens in his very own style. 

He traveled through a bog, and traversed a barely present path through the woods to find this old canoe looking log. 

Then he climbed to the top of a high ledge so that he could get this picture of the Harbor Master and me waving to him from the gazebo. We are in the very center of the picture, behind the branches. 

  

The First Mate believes in making sure that the location of the photograph is well documented. Thus, we have the sign that led us to the fern glade, but no pictures of the fern glade itself. 

The Japanese dry landscape (rock) garden.