Discovering New Plants While Traveling

One of the things I've loved about our travels is being able to see different landscapes than what we were used to seeing in Oklahoma. In fact, that's one of the reasons I was so excited to get out of Oklahoma and start traveling more.

When we had gone on vacations before and visited new places, I was always in awe of the different trees and plants that we would see. It was always so beautiful and vastly different than the same ol' stuff we saw in Oklahoma. I don't know if it truly is more beautiful - maybe it seemed so because it was new and different to me - but I sure enjoyed it!

So now that we are on the road full time and traveling all over the country again, we've seen so many amazing things in nature. Hiking has become a passion of ours and one of the reasons, for me anyway, is that I love seeing the variety of trees and plants along the way.

Enjoying the Desert

We loved the desert southwest part of the United States last winter and it was amazing. I never would have thought I'd find beauty in the desert but there are so many incredible plants there. I've enjoyed seeing yucca, prickly pear cactus, Arizona cypress trees, pine trees, juniper trees, century plants, and manzanita bushes to name a few.

The Arizona cypress trees have a stunning color - they're almost a whitish green color that looks so pretty as you're walking through the woods gazing at them. And what's super cool about these, if you look closely at the bark of some of them, they have a variety of colors and become smooth. The "regular" bark seems to peel off and leave this colorful part exposed and it's just gorgeous. The manzanita bushes are also cool because the bark of the branches has parts that turn red and smooth and it's so interesting looking. The prickly pear cactus is one of my favorites - especially when I see a shimmery purple one.

There's an app for discovering new plants while traveling.

One of the things that's helped me identify and learn about the plants in the area is an app called Seek.

I wanted to know what I was looking at as we hiked these trails so I went looking for an app to help me with that and the Seek app is amazing. It's very easy to use - you just open it and point your camera at things and it recognizes it and tells you what you're looking at. It also works for birds, animals, and a variety of other things too.

So if you're a nature lover and you want to learn more about your environment around you, I definitely recommend downloading this free app so you can check out the world around you.

If you aren’t already, I hope you’ll get out and explore this wonderful country and see all the things each region has to offer. Do you enjoy getting out in nature and seeing all the different plants, flowers, and trees? What's your favorite region of the country to explore?