Seattle: Volunteer park conservatory

Seattle is firmly in the grip of Old Man Winter's steely hands now, bringing that ominous monotone overcast lurking for what seems an interminable stretch of days to our skies, and ample moisture to boot. All those clouds like to bring their friends' drizzle, mold, and humidity along for the ride, lest we forget, so it's regularly damp outside. So, not only is it just cold, it's wet, and a bit squelchy out, but never fear! Having evolved and acclimated into this climate, Seattleites have a bounty of ways to stay warm and dry during the drearier of times thrown at them. One of my personal favorite options is to pop over to the Volunteer Park Conservatory, a stunning piece of architecture finished in 1912 featuring over 3,400 panes of glass and lush verdant greenery that's quite easily accessible in its prominent corner of the Northern Crest of Volunteer Park. Not only is the temperature kept warm and cozy for the plants all year long, making it a welcome respite from frigid temps, but they're among an increasingly shorter list of places where the parking is free! 

The admission fee is exceptionally reasonable, as well, at only $4 per adult, making it an awesomely affordable date option; bonus points because it's super photogenic so you can take all the cute photos! According to their website, you're more than welcome to take photos for personal use during your visit, but the use of tripods is limited to Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and if you intend to do a full-on photoshoot during your visit you'll need to reserve time outside of their regular operating hours, so plan accordingly if you want to get more involved in your photography. It's an absolutely stunning environment and quite popular for engagement and wedding shoots, but also some really cool creative fund-raising events, too, so be aware that you might need to book out a little bit in advance. If you, like me, want to take lots and lots of photos during your visit, that's fine, just be mindful of the people trying to also enjoy all the gorgeous flowers on display. That's fair, right? No one particularly enjoys having to dodge a photographer's butt jutting out into traffic. 

 The conservatory is pretty spacious, too, as there are five separate houses to explore, each with their own precision-controlled climate to accommodate their delicate denizens, of which there are many! The oldest surviving part of the building is the ornate lunette or peacock window panel above the front door, with the rest of the building having been rebuilt over the years. The conservatory has been here since 1912, so she's gonna need some love to keep on protecting and preserving her vast assortment of foliage over the years. Whether you're a sucker for succulents or go mad for a good carnivorous beauty, you've got plenty to choose from here. There are so many gorgeous specimens tucked into each room it's hard to really set eyes on each and everyone in a casual stroll. It's worth taking your time and really stopping to appreciate, and, uh, smell, the flowers. It's well-worth the $8. Go! Get you some flowers! They do, in fact, sell some plants out of their gift shop, so you can quite literally go get you some flowers. And you absolutely should. You never know what you'll find!

Washington: Slime Mold and Mushroom friends

When it comes to the strange and varied things that flourish and thrive in the moist climate of the Pacific Northwest, slime molds and mushrooms reside in that weird peripheral zone bordering between plant and animal life, crawling and climbing out of the dark, dank corners and often seeming to pop up overnight. When shown in sped-up time-lapse videos, you can see slime molds pulsating and reaching out in their relentless quest to consume any tasty microorganisms crawling on the grasses, plants, and other surfaces populating the terrain. While it's easy to assume that slime molds might be fungi, they are in fact amoeba, so they are separate from those cap-sporting cohorts you might spot nearby while out in the garden. 

Antho is fascinated by slime molds, perhaps in large part due to their incredible rarity throughout the better portion of our lives. Deserts aren't exactly ideal places for such moist entities, after all, so your chances of encountering one in Vegas are exceedingly minute. Same goes for most forms of mushrooms, so we've been pretty astounded by the diversity of forms we've been spying. We've spent a lot of time outdoors simply looking at the ground since we got to the Pacific Northwest, as everything is so verdant and lush there's literally life everywhere we look. A few weeks back we accidentally stepped on a banana slug that was making its way across our step and we were heartbroken! Well, to be honest, I was devastated, since I was likely the culprit behind the slug's untimely demise. We'd noticed the leopard print adorned creature the night prior, and remarked on how stunning it was...then I had to run out to the van to grab something, having forgotten all about our discovery by that point, and when the light of morning revealed what had happened it was long too late... We gave him (or her) a little burial under a bush in the yard. Cheesy, right? I genuinely felt bad about it, and Antho was kind enough to help me dig a little hole to lay them to rest in, along with handling the slimy remains for me. It's the circle of life... Ashes to ashes, slime to slime. 

 

Vegas: Springs Preserve Botanical Gardens

As much as we love all things cute fluffy (be them our mischief of rats or gila monsters lounging in a zoo) there was a lot more of the Springs Preserve to explore beyond the Space Exhibit at OriGen Museum and their zoo. Onward, we strolled, along the many winding paths through the gardens. We'd been in a hurry to see the museum and now our meanderings were aimless, simply looking to see what there was to find as we went and to, you know, stop and smell (or photograph) the flowers. Perhaps not all too surprisingly, there's quite a lot of garden that can be fit into 180 acres! That's a lot of flowers, even for us, so we weren't able to acquaint ourselves with each and every blossom, but that's ok. Saves something for next time! 😘

Of course there's abundant bounty of gorgeous flowers to see throughout the grounds, from the tiniest of wildflowers to shock bright cactus flowers jutting out from their spiky abutments like some kind of alien growth, but there's also plenty of benches to sit and ponder the beauty (or horror) of nature... or sit and pick your teeth, plus informative signs, hidden trails and all sorts of other fun things to discover. We spent at least an hour enjoying the mild weather and the beautiful sights and scenery. The Springs Preserve is a very, very photogenic location and it's easy to see why it's a popular destination for weddings! They also offer hosting for private events like corporate parties, special occasions, and often have public events celebrating the holidays like their Haunted Harvest event and the upcoming New Year's Eve celebration in their Cafe which sounds pretty spectacular.

There's a lot of classes available, too, which all sound like a lot of fun! 

This really is one of our favourite places here in town. It's conveniently located near the Meadows Mall, so if you don't feel like eating at their cafe you can always grab some Panda Express just around the corner. On top of being easy to get to, there's tons of parking (even for our awesome van, Vanticore) and it feels like the oasis in the desert that it is. 

More photos after the cut!

San Francisco: Golden Gate Park to the Golden Gate Bridge

We walked a lot while we were in San Francisco.

I believe we did around 10 or 12 miles per day.

Neither of us are joggers, so running was an unrealistic option for exploring the city in all it's quirks, rental cars are expensive (and parking even worse), and the bike rentals seemed like a great idea until it came to all those beautiful but steep hills. 

So, we walked.

Sure, we also took the BART, the busses, and the occasional trolley car from time to time, but mostly we walked. 

San Francisco is a city that, despite it's hills, is probably best explored by foot. The neighborhoods aren't nearly so far apart as they might initially appear; walking from Japantown to Chinatown took us maybe an hour and that's with frequent stops for photographs along the way and sipping some of the green tea I picked up at Nijiya. Fisherman's wharf was a quick trolley ride from there. 

Even our sojourn from the Golden Gate Park to the bridge wasn't terrible, and we'd already walked to the park from our hotel near Haight. 

Walking gives you the opportunity to see things you might miss out on when zipping past in a car, or to stop at your leisure to smell the flowers or admire the view without worrying about causing a traffic incident. On our walk from the park to the bridge, we passed a small produce store where we picked up sugar dates, peaches and fresh Rainier cherries for fresh snacking during our hike.

San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers

Strolling through the park, we found our way to the Conservatory of Flowers! 

If you're into movies, you might recognize it from the movie Heart and Souls with Robert Downey Jr. Antho showed me the movie a couple months back, so I was able to appreciate that tidbit of trivia. :)

The building is separated into various themed environment rooms, catering to the needs of differing varieties of flowers. Overflowing with blossoms and as beautiful as this place is, this is going to be one seriously photo heavy post. Ye of slower inter webs be warned!