No Butterflies Today

It’s been tough getting good photos around here lately, even though the weather has been beautiful all week long. I decided that a sure bet was the Butterfly Garden at the Pacific Science Garden, so I asked Lael to go along with me for a day out.

Unfortunately, after we drove all the way to Seattle and paid our $10 parking fee, I discovered that the Butterfly Garden was closed for the week. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about that, but I wasn’t about to leave, either.

We walked around the Seattle Center Gardens for 30 minutes waiting for the center to open. But I’m finding it harder and harder to get pictures of Lael where she’s not posing, as she obviously was in this shot:

Lael in the Seattle Center Garden

As it turned out, we had a great time playing with the “science” exhibits and watching an iMax movie about beavers, but it’s difficult to get photographs when you actually have to participate or when the lights are out. Most of the time, my camera simply got in the way.

Occasionally I managed to get a shot like this where Lael was so caught up with the display she forgot I was there.

Fun House Mirrors

Perhaps my favorite shot of the day was this one of a Martin Luther King quote I’d never heard before.

Martin Luther King Quotation

I must admit, however, that I wondered what it says about our society that officials felt they had to rope off the rock it was written on to protect it.

4 thoughts on “No Butterflies Today”

  1. Last time I visited Woodland Park (20 years ago) it was a kid’s day and they were inaugurating a new section with landscaping and new exhibits. I watched people come and pull up shrubs and flowers and walk off with them as if they saw a sign that said “Free Plants.” Devastated the place in a few hours. Interesting interpretation of how a zoo is perceived. The idea that nature–even in this rearranged setting, is intended for our consumption, a commodity like oil or a free resource like air.

  2. Well, I suspect the rope was meant more to prevent people from rubbing off the writing by touching the rock. A determined vandal would have no trouble getting past the rope to deface the stone. What I think is more telling is the protection now given to Michelangelo’s Pieta after someone attacked it with a sledgehammer.
    What does THAT say about our world.

  3. Lael continues growing her lively spirit. Not so easy to photograph anymore. Kind of like some of those birds that require just the right timing and patience before you can photograph them. Interesting how human beings, in learning the concept of “posing,” become elusive as the shyest of birds. Maybe that has something to do with Pablo Picasso’s comment, “It takes a long time to become young.”

    Good to hear Martin Luther King’s words here and now.

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