2015-9-6---to Knoxville and Boomsday celebration

 Next day we were invited to go to the final Boomsday celebration in Knoxville with Tim and Faith.  So we loaded up the car and got an early start.  Made it without delays.  WEnt to dinner in downtown Knoxville.  Did a bit of walking before we found a place without a 2 hour wait!  For watching the fireworks we ended up in the parking lot Tim parks in for work.  There we saw a spectacular fireworks display!

 It'll be a shame if this really is the last Boomsday!

After spending that Sunday and Labor DAy with them, we were on our way to Edisto again.

2015-9-5---Cardinal game with Bailey's

On our final full day there (and a main reason why we came back at this time), we headed downtown to the Cardinal game.  It was great seeing our friends from Oregon!  The air conditioned party room for the afternoon game was welcoming, too!  The Cardinals even won for us!  

 We hadn't even seen Ball Park Village before now!

 Our Oregonian friends. 

 He even had an ice cream dessert cart come in.

 Ken getting in the spirit.

That pretty well filled up 2 weeks in St. Louis.

2015-9-3---Butterfly House
 
One hot day I decided to see how much hotter I could get and went to the Butterfly House.  It was about 95 outside.  Not sure what it was in the "greenhouse" where the butterflies live, but it made our house feel not so bad for a little while.

 entrance to the butterfly house.

 love all the colors of the butterflies!

 I guess this one could read and was trying to go home.

These little guys are not too easy to photograph.  Need to get to the butterfly house more often!

2015-8-31---kids'  old house

Angie texted and said their house from when they lived in Ferguson was going up on the auction block starting at $35,000!  To the unknowing, that's probably status quo for a house in Ferguson since the riots and continued unrest, but we know that it had burnt down about 7 years ago and she used her K-State architecture schooling to rebuild it with a lot of top of the line stuff!  We were shocked to hear it was going to auction.  I was tempted to go to the auction, but was afraid I might buy it.  We already have 2 houses in north county and an apartment in Florida.  But I still can't imagine this going for $35,000---complete with finished basement. 

Still looked amazing!  I heard later that it didn't go to auction.  I guess the homeowner finally paid their bill.

2015-8-30---St. Louis Zoo


When we lived here full time, I always thought about going to the zoo or Arch or butterfly garden, or many other places, but it would be decades between trips to most.  So as a tourist, I went to as many as I could fit in.  First to the Botanical Gardens, then to the zoo.  I've always been impressed with our zoo and everytime I go they've added more to it.  It is quite large and beautifully landscaped.  The newest thing there now is the Polar bear enclosure.

 some of the many flowers in the zoo.

 viewing into the pond in the rhino area.

 another baby elephant at the St. Louis zoo.  Raja, the first one born here now has 4 or 5 calves.

 a little climatron butterfly house is relatively new here, too.

 the penguin house---felt really good in there since the weather in St. Louis turned really hot the 2nd week we were there! 

 puffins

 Don't know where they got the boxes from, but 2 of the gorillas were wandering around with boxes that said Latex gloves on them.  I only know that's what the box said because I zoomed into it with my 200 zoom lens.  Wonder if anything was in the boxes?  The day after I was there one of the gorillas died.  Supposedly of a heart condition. 

 a lesser antelope

 a wanna be giraffe and a real one.

a smart lion.

one of the big cats

 more of the beautiful flowers landscaping the zoo. 

Like I mentioned, it got hot!  Temps in the mid 90s with heat indexes well over 100.  People are always commenting isn't it hot in South Florida.  I always say never as bad as the days like we have in St. Louis when they have heat waves---and there usually are some in July and August in St. Louis.  Maybe it's because S. Florida gets almost nightly thunderstorms and lots of clouds to cool it down and St. Louis doesn't.

2015-8-28 and 29  visiting with friends and family

The next few days we caught up with friends and family---dinner with the Schneiderjans-twice; breakfast with Josh's folks; dinner with FAith's Dad and fiance; lunch with friends from swimming; dinner with friends from volleyball; Ken saw friends he use to work with; dinner at his sister-in-law's and brother's restaurant (Stefanina's--great as always); lunch with some friends from Illinois from my childhood; and a couple more visits with my brother and sister-in-law.  Took my brother and sister-in-law to a park we use to ride bikes at--Confluence park where the Missouri and the Mississippi meet--and wandered around a bit.

 meeting of the rivers.

I even went bowling with a friend.  We were doing pretty good until they shut the lights off and a bunch of little kids came in and started running wild all over the lanes.  We packed it up and headed to lunch then.

 -

2015-8-25---Missouri Botanical Gardens 


Day 1- I met up with a photography friend and she and I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens and shot pictures of everything.  They were still set up for the Chinese Lanterns exhibit, so we got to see it by daylight.  This is made up of bottles of different colored water.

 found some more butterflies--Monarch, I believe.

 and lush beautiful plants.

 even found the reflections in the Japanese Garden pond interesting.

 colorful dragonfly

 More of the Japanese Garden.

 zig zag bridge in the Japanese Garden

 in the Italian Garden.

 The St. Louis symbol Flore de li made up of tiny plants.

 Karen getting a macro shot in the patchwork garden.

 more of the Chinese lantern decorations.  They light up at night.

 more Chinese Lantern lights.

 and, yes, more.

 close up of a hybiscus flower.

 cone flower

 bee checking out the garden, too.

 flowers with the Linean House in the back ground.

 some of the many roses.

 some of the many Chinese Lanterns.

 lastly, a water lily.  We spent 5 hours there catching up and exploring.  It was a fun time.

I do miss our Missouri Botanical Gardens!  It is impressive.  But so are the reciprocal gardens we find around the country!