The 21st Century Matriarch

The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is on Belle Island (in the Detroit River). It is the oldest continually-running conservatory in the US….opening in 1904. The original wood framing was replaced with steel and aluminum in 1949. My daughter and I stopped to see it on our road trip from our homes in Missouri to London Ontario.

The place is filled with interesting plants. It was challenging to get wide views from the relatively narrow walkways other than looking upward.

I quickly reverted to macro type photographs.

Some plants interested me so much that I took multiple images of the same plant.

Curly crotons were new to me.

The Venus flytrap and pitcher plants were inside a terrarium type structure that somehow made it even easier to photograph them.

The cactus room was one of my favorites…my theme was to photograph the various configurations of cactus spines.

The conservatory is not the largest I’ve toured…but it probably packs more plants into its space than any other! Tomorrow’s post will be about the grounds around the conservatory (including a koi pond) and the aquarium.

When my daughter told me about a conference she was attending in London, Ontario in early October, I volunteered to go too – doing half the driving. Flying directly to the place was expensive and flying to Toronto necessitated some form of transportation from there to the smaller city (rental car, bus, or train). She liked the road trip idea, and I booked a room in the same hotel where she had. We opted to make the 14-hour drive over two days with the 1st day being the long one in each direction. Her employer provided a rental car.

My husband took us to pick up the rental car on the morning we were leaving. My daughter forgot her coat (and the forecast in Canada indicated she would need it) so a stop by her house delayed us a little…but I had an opportunity to enjoy the fall roses near her driveway and

The spectacular pods on her magnolia. Maybe we can harvest some of the pods when they have the red seeds in them to use in December decorations.

The first-day drive was a long slog – over 9 hours – and we passed from Central to Eastern time. We arrived at the hotel at sunset.

We had chosen a restaurant for dinner…but it had closed about 20 minutes before we got there! Fortunately, there was another one nearby that worked out just as well.

The next morning, we were up early. My daughter splurged on a huge cinnamon roll from the hotel’s breakfast. I had my usual dark chocolate then ate the rest of the carrots I had brought for the road (finishing everything that needed to be kept cool). We stopped at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and Belle Island Aquarium…on the island in the Detroit River (more about that in subsequent posts). We had lunch on the patio at Ivy Kitchen in Detroit (Jefferson Street) afterwards. My daughter ordered a mimosa and was challenged for the rest of the lunch with wasps taking an interest.

We made it to London, Ontario by about 4PM having crossed into Canada at Sarnia and unpacked in our home-away-from-home for the next week. Since the rooms had kitchens, we bought a few groceries.

A week later, we go up before the sun. I took a picture of the sunrise just before I headed down to the parking garage with my luggage.

Google Maps routed use toward the border crossing between Windsor and Detroit rather than reversing our previous route. The route was like an interstate the whole way! A few things were different: the road number was on a crown rather than a shield, the ‘food’ symbol on signs included a cup/saucer with the familiar knife and fork, the speed limits were in KM and the gas plumps dispensed L of gas!

My daughter was driving so I was able to take pictures of the Detroit skyline while we went over the Ambassador Bridge back into the US. There was more traffic at the Windsor-Detroit crossing and it took longer than the Sarnia crossing a week earlier, but the ETA that Google had calculated for us must have taken it into account since we arrived at our hotel only a few minutes ‘late.’

The route crossed Michigan, Indiana and into Illinois. We were back on Central time.The next day was a shorter day and we got off early…arrived home in Missouri by noon! Both of us were keen to do laundry and otherwise get back to ‘normal.’

More posts over the next week about what I did in London, Ontario!