TBT: Summertime Sadness - Royal Botanical Gardens

Hi everyone! Day 4 in the new city and it is getting chillier each day... Regret not packing more sweaters and super regret forgetting my gloves back home.  This increasingly autumn-y weather seems to justify making today's post a throwback Thursday, back to the last trip of the summer.  It was another multi-family excursion but just a day trip this time.  We hit up Royal Botanical Gardens as well as the City of Waterfalls (Google it and be surprised, it's not Niagara).  I dressed very comfy, ready to run and jump and climb and crawl, getting all up in nature's face.  Hope you enjoy the photos!

Starting off with my favourite shot of the trip

If you haven't been to Royal Botanical Gardens before, I strongly suggest not doing what we did, which is just show up.  We knew nothing about the place beforehand, which is why the weekend when we went, not only was it past bloom for many of the flowers, a couple of the gardens were actually closed (that was another thing, I thought it was just one really big garden; it's actually multiple gardens).

Pretty blue Gazebo

Wheelbarrow - evidently, for display purposes only

Pretty pink flowers

I think the two we went to were the main garden (I forget the name?) and the Arboretum (trees).
What the garden lacked in terms of blooming flower variety, it more than made up for in the animal department.  I was overly excited at all the wildlife, including but unfortunately not pictured, giant colourful dragonflies, a couple of snakes, and a perfectly round ladybug.  I was able to capture the following:

Tiny little toad hiding in the grass - almost stepped on him!

The cutest little chipmunk! he wants to be my pet, I just know it

Scary spider and his lunch
This is the stuff my nightmares are made of

Canada Goose: Migration

Canada Goose: They are gathering

The second part of the trip was to Dundas, Hamilton.  There were multiple waterfalls but I didn't capture many photos because 1) there were a good deal of people around so it was hard to take a purely scenic shot; and 2) I was paranoid about getting the mist from the waterfalls into my camera.

Minuscule compared to Niagara, but still very beautiful

Overall, it was a fun trip, jam-packed into a day and followed by some evening outlet shopping and lobster eating.  That's what I call getting the most out of your Saturday!