Nature's Art Weekend
Last Saturday was a perfect fall day. The sky was clear, the air was crisp and the sun warmed our faces. It was the perfect day to spend outside with friends, wandering around a beautiful garden. I went to St. Louis with some friends to see the Chihuly exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The first Chihuly glass I saw was in Vancouver, in the lobby of some fancy building. It was huge, colorful and very impressive. At the botanical garden, the glass pieces were smaller, but no less impressive. Some were outdoors gracing the tops of trellises, hidden among the shrubbery and floating in pools. Most of the glass pieces were in an indoor Climatron, peeking out of the plants and creating interesting scenes of contrasting colors. Neat. I took lots of pictures, but haven't even looked through them yet. I need to learn how to post pictures here...
As it happened, the Best of Missouri Market was held on the same day, in the parking lot of the botanical garden. We pushed our way through the crowds and sampled popcorn, cookies, dips, sauces and sausages, and looked at jewelry, wood crafts and decorative iron wind catchers. We didn't buy anything, but got some good craft ideas. That's right, I go to craft shows to rip off ideas.
Sunday was another beautiful day, cool in the morning but quite warm in the afternoon. GC and I went for a hike at Shooting Star bluffs with some friends. The boys raced ahead while the girls trailed behind. I kept expecting to see Chihuly glass pieces peeking out from behind the trees, but all I saw were hundreds of spider webs spun between clumps of grass on the ground. Nature's art. I examined some of the spiders in the webs and recognized them as some we have around the house, though hopefully ours aren't nearly as big as the ones along the trail. We hiked to the top of the bluffs, then down to the dry creek bed below and back up to some more bluffs. The leaves are changing, so the views from the bluffs were bright and colorful, though still with a lot of green.
If only there had been a hayride, this would have been the perfect fall weekend.