MO Promises Made, MO Promises Kept

St. Louis' City Foundry really had some bad luck trying to open right around the time covid hit. They were pretty smart this time though and had a socially distanced craft fair in like an open air parking garage type space.

Spencer and Doug were in attendance.

Next we headed to Missouri Botanical Garden for their temporary exhibit Origami in the Garden.

There were giant origamis.

We completed our MO state park quest with a bang! Jay Nixon State Park is not only undeveloped/closed but it’s also unaccessible from the road! MO has a top notch park system and every park is free to visit.

And with that closed park, we had officially completed our holy quest to visit every state park and state historic site in Missouri within one year. We began on May 19 of last year so we even have a little time to spare.

Yes they had ice cream but I had visited General Custard's Re-Treat in Farmington, Missouri primarily for their pun game.

We did a little strolling around Farmington to walk off the custard. This flower shop looked like a moon base.

Missouri Botanical Gardens Garden Party Lights

Lydia scammed us some tickets to see the Missouri Botanical Gardens Garden Party Lights event through the Educator Appreciation Day program. I think it would normally cost like $20 a piece so I was excited about the opportunity to do it for free.

We saw St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson admiring one of the light shows. Lydia's still pretty jelly that I have a picture with her and she doesn't. Sad. I think she's also pretty sour about how much better "Lyda" rolls off the tongue than "Lydia".

It was fun but I'm definitely glad we didn't spend $40 to get in here, nor would I recommend anyone else do so. The Botanical Gardens are sort of annoying because they take tax money but they also try to charge admission. They are by far the lamest of the Science Center, Art Museum, and Zoo group and yet are the only ones trying to charge for tickets. Not sure what they are thinking.

Stinkin' at the Missouri Botanical Gardens

A rare corpse flower at the Missouri Botanical Gardens began its 24-hour long bloom so we (and a lot of other people) lined up to see it in the middle of the night.

The corpse flower really is a weird one. The corpse name comes from the rotten smell it emits when in bloom in order to attract flies and use them as a pollen vector.

One of the other corpse flowers present was in an earlier life stage, with one massive tree-like leaf.

Once the giant leaf dies after a year or two the plant lies dormant for another year or so before it starts to do its flower thing. It's not surprising that such a weird plant with one leaf is on the endangered list.

It didn't smell as bad as I had expected. I think maybe we caught it too early.

Per Wikipedia "analyses of chemicals released by the spadix show the stench includes dimethyl trisulfide (like limburger cheese), dimethyl disulfide, trimethylamine (rotting fish), isovaleric acid (sweaty socks), benzyl alcohol (sweet floral scent), phenol (like Chloraseptic), and indole (like feces)."

Stinky times indeed.