It’s amazing how time can slip through our fingers. In my mind it felt as if we’ve visited Garfield Park Conservatory many times over the years, but then looking back through the history of my photos, I see the last time was in February 2010! How can that be? Part of that may be due to the terrible damage the conservatory suffered in June 2011 when large hail broke many of the glass panels in their roof.

In any case, in the past we typically visited in the colder months when there wasn’t much to photograph outdoors. This time, however, I decided a warm-weather trip would be worthwhile so we could check out the conservatory’s outdoor gardens which are even more beautiful and interesting than I remember! From the flowers, to the sitting areas, to the vegetable garden, the best place in the conservatory is outdoors.

View the entire set of 54 photos here.

Previous Visits
» Feb 2010
» May 2005
» Jan 2005

One of the creepier sites I’ve been to, Bachelor’s Grove is located in/near Midlothian, IL. During our one and only visit to the site, in October 2001, we ran into a lot of “ghost hunters” even in broad daylight. Apparently the site gets a lot of traffic close to Halloween for the obvious reasons. I would never visit at night, no way, as I’d get scared too easily.

» Bachelors Grove photoset

We got married in 2005 in Florida so that we could do a combo wedding on the beach and honeymoon at Disney World and SeaWorld. It was a very memorable experience dealing with Hurricane Wilma which prompted us to change our sunset wedding to a noon wedding so we could leave the Gulf coast and move inland to Orlando where the hurricane made landfall the following day, October 24, 2005.

The hurricane brought cooler weather so it was a bit cold swimming with the dolphins at Discovery Cove (across the street from SeaWorld), but overall the trip was great because we could enjoy all the time spent outdoors without overheating. Some of my fondest memories are from that trip.



All the photo sets from our honeymoon:
» Magic Kingdom
» Epcot
» Universal Studios
» Discovery Cove
» SeaWorld
» Animal Kingdom & MGM Studios