Merry Christmas from The Mitchell Park Domes!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a fun time celebrating today. I'm going to share some photos with you from The Mitchell Park Domes. The Domes contain a warm environment where even tropical and desert plants can grow. At Christmas, some of the plants are decorated and there is a themed display. This year's theme was Hawaiian Tiki. This is what The Domes look like from outside:

We started in the tropical dome. There were all kinds of plants I wasn't familiar with in there. It was pretty fun since I haven't seen any lush, green plants for months.

I was calling this the Q-Tip plant but I think it had the word Starburst in its name.

This cool frog was peeking out of the pond in the middle of the dome.

This is a Staghorn Fern. It looks like antlers on a wall.

Next we went to the desert environment. That was my favorite dome. There were all kinds of "critters" in with the desert plants. I'm glad none of these were real.

I thought it would have been cute if they had put a little Santa hat on the snake.

An abandoned boot:

This is a close-up of a furry cactus. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I knew better. There are some spikes hiding under that fur.

I don't know what this is, but it's awesome!

The cacti were dressed up for Christmas.

This little tree is a Jade Plant.

An Aloe Plant:

The Fan Palm Tree:

The Dragon Blood Tree:

There is a dark resin in this tree that looks very blood-like. Do an image search for it, and you too can be grossed out!

I'm not sure what this is...

This looks like a desert Poinsettia to me.

The last dome had the Hawaii themed decorations.

An old enlarged photo showing how the domes once looked.

Some cool, two-toned Poinsettias.

A Tiki figure and some Tiki Torches:

The tree had little Tikis on it. You can see what the curved glass walls look like from inside the dome.

There was a winding stream running through the room.

A bit of the curving old lamp that I'm assuming went with the original domes.

Here's more of the lamp. You guys know I love stuff like this!

Baby pineapples:

A Bird of Paradise:

I hope you guys enjoyed these photos! It was fun getting to experience some living plants at this time of year.

I was going to post a recording of myself reading some Christmas poetry, but I am unfortunately sick. I was hoping that I would somehow be better by this evening, but no. I know that no one wants to hear a congested person reading poetry, so I think I'm going to post a reading for New Year's instead. I'll save the Christmas poem I was sent and read it then along with anything New Year's themed I can find.

Have a great rest of the holiday!