Amazingly enough, there were some azaleas blooming along the paths at Cypress Gardens this past Saturday during a very pleasant walk there.   Had not been in early Fall before.   Autumn offers the visitor its own special gifts at this place of great natural beauty.

This delicate lavender flower...  so delicate in it's beauty.

A recent late afternoon scene at the state park.  I love the way light and shadows play through the trees at that time of day.

Drayton Hall, nine miles north of Charleston.

The ever-beautiful Cana lilly.   A tour-de-force from Nature.

An exquisite sunset over the marsh at Folly Beach recently.   

The deep green of summer endures on into September at the state park.  Walking the paths among the live oaks and small lakes, one senses deeply the utter peace of this place, and is grateful.

During a country drive last weekend, in the middle of the Francis Marion National Forest, I suddenly came upon a clearing in the woods and a remarkable sight:  an old abandoned wooden church, long left to the elements, surrounded by a chain link fence and adjacent to a cemetery nestled among trees.  It was a brilliantly bright and sunny Saturday in late summer.  I immediately put on the brakes, turned around and then stopped to photograph what I had discovered.  When you have your camera with you, and you are driving along a road you have never traveled before, coming across such a place in the deep and everlasting quiet of the middle of nowhere is pure serendipity.

A magnificent live oak at Magnolia Gardens.