Kevin had to fly back to Tampa for business and that left us with a couple of days to explore. Yesterday we took full advantage of the beautiful conditions and headed for the outdoor sculpture garden downtown. My main focus for the next couple of days is "free or pretty close to it" and the sculpture garden fit the bill. We even found free parking, but it was a one-hour limit so we sort of rushed through.
We began our visit in the conservatory, which houses a Japanese bonsai exhibit and a collection of excellent ferns in a very humid enclosure. Walking in there was like going back to Florida. The other thing that reminded us of home was the tarantula exhibit. Not that we have tarantulas in the Sunshine State, but we do have spiders large enough to take on small alligators and there is not really much difference, in my opinion.
I don't know if all the animals were bored or hot or holding a grudge of some sort, but no one cooperated for photos. The result is a few random images of various goofy faces and wildly patterned backsides. I did not even try to photograph the gorillas because big apes give me the creeps worse than arachnids.
-Jenni