Sundays In My City: Chihuly At Fairchild, A Garden Of Glass
20 April 2015
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On Sunday night, from 6-9 PM, we went to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden to visit the Dale Chihuly blown glass art exhibit. Disclosure: We were given complimentary passes to the Garden in exchange for this blog post. As always, all opinions on this post are 100% my own.
This was the first exhibit we encountered. That's all glass, floating in the water! How cool, no? You can read all about artist Chihuly here.
The sights and scenery were breathtakingly beautiful throughout the garden.
This exhibit brought new meaning to the term "party boat" for me.
We craned our necks to look at this bird. Heh. See what I did there?
I really thought the White Belugas looked more like the crane than the whale, but what do I know? They were still Teh Awesome.
I hadn't realized the scientific name of Coffee before, but it makes sense in both generic and specific form. To me, anyway, and I drink a lot of the stuff.
♫ "Walking along. Singing a song. At the bottom of a beautiful, blimey, shimmery, shiny, sea..." ♫
Chloë thought the central blue starry thingy was more like a porcupine, but I was team sea urchin all the way. What do you think?
Please, no jokes about blue balls. I wouldn't dream of making one myself, either.
My girls, especially, seem to have this odd fascination with lily pads. I don't know what it is, but personally, I think they're pretty cool, too.
Electric blue
To me, these flowers in Spanish moss look like baby birds in a nest. Do you see it?
Chloë had to visit the restroom, and we were next to the garden café at the time. I got in line after seeing they had handcrafted tropical fruit sodas. I saw myriad flavors and guessed that the children would probably want to share the mango flavor, since they all positively adore all things mango. I guessed correctly, they affirmed when returning from the bathroom. As for me, I can't stand mangoes or anything flavored thusly. Just not my thing...
I find that plenty of vignettes, such as this one, found in the garden were objets d'art in and of themselves.
The koi pond was a beautiful location for this installation.
I think the blue koi pond, combined with this Chihuly piece, was my favorite, favorite part of the whole showing.
I hope I get an invite!
(Psst: probably my least favorite of the Chihuly pieces. Hey. Everybody's got to have one.)
"Mmm. Chocolate." (...said like Homer Simpson and his donuts.)
That's just bananas!
The edible garden was quite cool. No, we didn't actually get to partake of any fruits.
Got any colada for that piña?
Aguacate! YUM.
The honeybees, they matter. Keep 'em around, you guys.
I swear my grandma had this much aloe on her window ledge in her New Jersey apartment. No lie. I remember, like, every summer, at least one of us (my sister or I) would get a bad sunburn at the Leonia municipal pool, and we would break off a piece of aloe to rub on the burn.
This reminds me: I miss our compost bin. It was usefully huge (for our sizable family) and hugely useful. We left it behind at the house in Virginia Beach. Wah.
Speaking of mangoes...!
I love these camo pants on Sophie. Just sayin'.
There are so many different species of palm trees, I swear! I should probably go look up how many. Hang on a sec...
☼ Intermission ☼
I'm back. Holy crap, according to this Palm Wiki, there are about 2600 different species. Whoa!
Just a spider doing important spider things...
That guy in the hat, admiring the Icicle Tower, was wearing a utilitarian kilt. The kids wanted to ask him about it, but they dared not, so I had to suck it up and ask for them. He got it in Washington State, it's a Utilikilt, and he's not entirely Scottish. He was, however, quite terse, and so that's all I learned. His wife was far more friendly, and she was wearing a pretty butterfly skirt.
I like the name "Buccaneer Palm" better, personally.
"Here, lee-zard, lee-zard!" We saw a rather lot of rather large lizards, including one iguana, at the garden last night.
*ahem* Phallic! *ahem*
That one on the bottom reminded Rob of Stevie Wonder in his beaded-hair days, but I was immediately thinking of Bob Marley, myself.
Love this pic of Sophie carrying her OLDER brother Jack on her back! Love it, love it, love it!
A statue of the great Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, speaker for the Everglades, holding Sophia's hand. Well, maybe vice-versa, but you know what I mean.
Oh say, can you see?
This raccoon was just ambling along, nose to the ground, with nary a care in the world that we were standing there watching him, exclaiming, taking pictures, and otherwise carrying on about his nonchalance.
The Bird of Paradise, one of few tropical plants I can properly identify. Gee, I wonder why?
Sophie tried to get in the fountain, as she is always attempting to do. She has, at times, succeeded. That's life with Sophia!
Team Odette, just being silly, pretending to land tush-first on a giant cactus
A lady, speaking to me mostly in Spanish, asked for "the one that looks like a Christmas tree." I don't know who told her that, but apparently someone did, about this one. I don't see it at all?
I love you THIIIIISSSSSS much!
Jack was pretending to be a statue on a bench, like the one of Marjorie S. Douglas, but to me he looks more like a zombie. Silly.
Deserted.
I joked that this large ball cactus was almost as big as Chloë's enormous head. She indignantly exclaimed, "Hey! No, it's not!" Ha. Hahaha.
"The Trash Heap has spoken!" Who remembers Fraggle Rock?
Gotta watch this, whether you do or whether you don't:
Right? D'ya see it??!
The "Apple Blossom" Amaryllis is a monocotyledon. I prefer monocots to dicots. I said so aloud. This brought on an instant Science lesson about the differences in leaf striation between the two, when other people started gathering around to listen, and I got embarrassed and started walking away. Which reminds me, we really need to do a big ol' Plants Unit soon. I've sort of been avoiding it like the plague.
This piece reminds me of a bonfire explosion. Or something. I'm not sure. But I like it.
Back to the back!
"Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire." - Bernard Williams
We interrupted an engagement party, at which all the guests wore white. It looked soooo lovely, and what a beautiful setting for the fête! I had to know what was in all the goody bags everyone had, so I stopped a woman on the way out. She hadn't even looked in hers yet, so she didn't know! Can you even?! I made her look. She giggled and went right ahead and looked. I know there was a book about Chihuly and some chocolates, but I forget what else. Either way, it was cool to be semi- a part of things. ;)
Chloë, ever the dramatic child...!
We didn't, but we did visit the gift shop. It was quite the coolness. I didn't get pictures, but they had blown glass cnidaria ("jellyfish") inside more glass of another color. I wanted one. I dared not ask how much.
We loved this scene spread before us near the entrance/exit, so of course we had to take the photographic opportunity. I tried to get the kids to sing the "Farewell" song from The Sound of Music, but since they've never even SEEN it, they didn't know the song. Yes. I have failed them that much, apparently, since it's among my five top favorite films. Sadness.
In case you don't know that heck about which I am speaking:
On that note, adieu! And merci for stopping by.
Thank you, again, to Director of the Garden, Dr. Carl E. Lewis, and to Brooke LeMaire and the Marketing team at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden for sending us the free passes to visit the garden. We had a wonderful time seeing the Chihuly exhibition and will definitely be back! As always, all opinions are completely mine in this post.
Fin.