Flora Borealis

When Mom was in town back in late July, we made plans to head to Flora Borealis down at Missouri Botanical Gardens.

The four of us -- mom, P, me, and S -- started out at O'Connell's Pub for dinner in advance of the walk through the park.  I hadn't been to O'Connell's in a while, and I don't think I had ever sat on the restaurant side of the establishment.  I'm not sure I want to be there again.

Worst of all, the service was terrible.  S eventually went to the bar to order our drinks because we couldn't find our server.  Second worst (only because if the drinks had been timely he probably wouldn't have minded so much), we were at one of the center tables, which are hobbit sized and S couldn't fit his knees underneath it!  He had to eat the whole meal awkwardly attempting to straddle one whole side of the table and leaning way forward in order to reach his food.  And yes, the server finally did show up so we could order food.  I got a burger (because I feel like you have to) and onion rings.  They were fine -- bar food -- but certainly nothing to write home about.  Maybe they were having an off day, but I'm not going to make a point to go back.

Then, on to the Gardens!  In a nutshell, my review of the show is mixed.

It started out with a very strange and preachy lecture about the fragility of the Earth directed at us through the voice of a nymph? elf lady? I'm not sure? via speakers placed around the rose garden.  I feel like everyone there already appreciates the gardens, and by extension, the Earth, and that was pretty unnecessary.  They did pump the whole rose garden full of some kine of (certainly environmentally-friendly) smoke, and had an overhead light show the whole time the nymph lady was talking.  That was sort of neat.

There were lots of sections of the sidewalk through the garden that were lighted in interesting ways, but not all that different than the Christmas show, except for the color choices.  The two coolest parts, I thought, were this one tree that they used as a backdrop for a light show, and Henry Shaw's house.  That show again had the elfin voiceover, but they did such a great job using the house as a projection screen that you could pretty easily ignore it.

So, it was neat.  There were some amazing light displays, but for $25 per head (and in keeping with the theme of the outing), I wouldn't make it a point to go back.

We did see this super cool truck in the parking lot, though.