Translate

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Weekend Snapshot: 22


On Saturday, Bill and I went to the Winter Open House for Open Spaces at Blue Jay Point. The activities centered around why open space is so important and it was a perfect day for an outing. The weather was more like fall than winter which was a nice change. Blue Jay Point is a 236 acre park on the shores of Falls Lake, and is a peninsula bordered on 3 sides by the lake. The lake is a reservoir managed by the US Army Corp of Engineers and is the main source of water for where I live. The reservoir is man made and covers 12,500 acres with water. The reservoir is surrounded by 25,500 acres of public land. We were visiting a county park on the lake but the Falls Lake State Recreational Area includes a number of good places for boating, swimming, hiking, and camping. Rangers present educational and interpretive programs about the lake and its aquatic environment. The majority of the Blue Jay Point is second growth forest land and was once primarily agricultural land. They have three acres devoted to open play fields, a playground, an environmental education center and an overnight lodge. It's a beautiful park and not that far from where I live but I don't make it there very often. Since there are two smaller lakes very close to my house and so many trails that are part of the greenway system, I forget to explore some of the large parks a little farther away. I was glad Bill suggested we go to the open house because I tend to stick close to home too much lately. They have environmental programs for children and also for adults. I liked the children's definition of biodiversity above. They came up with the definition in an ecology workshop. You will probably have to click inside the photo above to enlarge it, if you want to read it. The education center has a lot of interesting displays and information. There were rooms set up with puppet shows for children and other family oriented events that were pretty crowded but the main part of the center wasn't too full. We almost didn't go inside when we saw how many people were there but I'm glad we did. We also enjoyed walking on the trails to the lake. I love tall grasses especially when they are brown in the winter and the parks near where I live get mowed too fast to suit me. I always like places with natural areas where they don't mow, and Blue Jay point has several large fields of tall grass.
I know the wildlife appreciates the natural areas. The center has exhibits and programs for exploring the natural habitat found at Blue Jay Point including the ecology of the fields, forests and streams. The exhibits take a look at the perils currently impacting the local environment. Water is the focus of a lot of the exhibits and they explain the water cycle, the Neuse River basin, the watershed and the city's dependence on Fall's lake for its water.
They had exhibits about conservation of water as well as other environmental issues. If it hadn't been such a pretty day, I would have spent more time looking at the exhibits inside as well as some of the special displays outside. However, Bill and I headed for the trails to the lake pretty quickly, after taking a quick look at the open house. The day was far to pretty to waste inside.
The shot above is the playground which is in front of the trails that lead to the lake. That's it for my weekend snapshot(s). If you want to find out more about WS and locate other participants, you can go to weekend snapshot's home page. You can also find WS posts on technorati -




35 comments:

Napaboaniya.Elaine Ling said...

I think the reservoir is great. The entire place is good for an educational family weekend outing :)

Anonymous said...

Love the photos, Carver, the sky is so clear but the weather seems cold.

Have a great week :)

Anonymous said...

How wonderful it is to go there, not just as a place to visit, but for leaning new things too. The reservoir is great and looks so cool.

Anonymous said...

Awesome photos,Carver! Love the photos too!

Heart of Rachel said...

Hi Carver. Lovely blue sky. Must have been a nice day to spend outdoors. Hope you enjoyed the activities of the day. I admire project geared towards taking care of the environment.

My Weekend Snapshots:

Candles & Fruits
Not-so-little Spider

SandyCarlson said...

That looks like a marvelous place. Thanks for bringing us along!

Emmyrose said...

I love the photos, very refreshing and soothing.

Have a great week :)

Emzkie said...

seems like you had a very wonderful weekend. =) I just cant wait when its spring time. You could a lot of stuff like that.

Juliana said...

I love the second photo :D It is beautiful.

Visit My Weekend Snapshot : Storm

Barb said...

What a great way to spend the day!

Anonymous said...

I love the lake and the weather seems nice. You truly had a great weekend! Nice!

Anonymous said...

wwhhooaahh... i love the lake! lovely shots!

mine is up too!!
http://www.pinoynetwork.org/vera
see yah there!

happy ws!

Sharon said...

Your pictures are very pretty! What a great place to visit. The info was quite interesting as well.

Anonymous said...

I was supposed to comment here but I clicked on the wrong link :D

I love the second photo, Carver! And it sure looked like you had so much fun last weekend :)

Happy Monday!

Sasha
She

DeLi said...

lovely place... i love the sky and oh teh nature. i didnt get to go out yesterday :) thanks for thsi sharing

Theresa said...

I like the big blue house with the huge porch. It looked very inviting. It was nice to see how many kids in the picture to help bring awareness to the beauty of open spaces.

Natalie said...

What a cool place! That weather looks amazing!

My Weekend Snapshot

invisibleglue said...

thanks for your comment and support on my eds blog. I only post there about one time a week. I just cant handle it much more then that.
I like the circle picture. It looked very mandela like
the colonoscopy is to be a "virtual colonoscopy" one so that i just go through a tube; i think it is like a full body scan. do you know?

**"Liza"** said...

Ohh it would be nice to visit that place..looks like you had a wonderful weather there this week end..Great photos as always..;)

Anna said...

What a beautiful shot....Thanks for sharing....
Mine is up too:
Every Beat Of My Heart

flipland said...

that area looks fantastic. looks like a great place to hike.

check out mine at http://flipland2.blogspot.com for some celeb spotting.

the other site has some pics up too: http://flipix.blogspot.com

eastcoastlife said...

That is a really huge and beautiful reservoir! Singapore needs that! We have limited land and have to buy water from our neighbouring countries.

HartofDixie said...

What a great way to spend the weekend.
Terrific photos!

Anonymous said...

Oh thats pretty shots. I love the color of the sky.

Carver said...

Thanks so much to everyone for visiting and commenting.

I emailed you J (invisible glue) but from what I can tell a virtual colonoscopy is done in a CT scanner which is in a tube like the full body scan. I had a regular colonoscopy so I'm not familiar with that type but I emailed you a good link with pictures.

ellen said...

the photos are so cool!....its just wonderful to be able to go there!...have a great week to you my friend!

Joyismygoal said...

Wow, I love that-- I used to be a docent at a very similar place. It is such a fitting name since the first shot is so blue. I too love the unmanicured look of the wildlife refuges.

Anonymous said...

that's interesting.

i like your shots they are great!

maryt/theteach said...

Fantastic post and photos to illustrate it! It could have been a MM post for Mo's "Blue" theme today! Keeping open spaces and pristine forest areas is really important!

Yolanda said...

It look so nice and I love the ceiling mural.

Anonymous said...

Amazing shots Carver..love the blue sky!!!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a nice place to visit. You took some great photos to help describe it.

Carver said...

Thanks for visiting my weekend snapshots. Hope everyone has a good week.

tanabata said...

Sounds like a great day out. I love that blue! Blue sky, blue water! (sigh)

Carver said...

Thanks so much for visiting my weekend snapshot.