February is a splendid time of year for people who live Up North to check their address books and figure out who they know Down South. My wife's sister, a physician, introduced me to the proper definition of an introvert; that would be a person who recharges their emotional battery with a period of solitude. My wife the extrovert charges hers' with periods of intense sociability. So she is currently charged and I am depleted (but recovering manfully).
When Bruce and Celia descended on us recently, an attempt to escape the "dry heat" of mid winter in New Mexico, we spent an enjoyable time with them as they revisited this area, in which they had lived previously. This past weekend my wife's cousins from Chicago stopped by as part of a Florida tour, and they were new to Key West. Bob had been down decades ago, dragged by his father on a family vacation but Lyn had never been at all, so their visit gave me an opportunity to see Key West through fresh eyes, always a pleasure.
I learned a lot about Bob and Lyn this trip, and though I knew a trip to the Botanical Garden was on the cards (report to follow!) I had no idea they would be entranced by butterflies. And it just so happens Key West has a Butterfly Conservatory on Duval Street.
I have been there before in the 1300 block of Duval, and its an easy place to visit with plenty of parking in back. The conservatory was the brainchild of a man who came to Key West obsessed by the insects and to feed his passion he built the greenhouse on Duval Street just a few years ago. Its never easy to figure which businesses are going to flourish in the Keys but this one seems to be doing well, certainly I'd never have figured that to be the case. There was a healthy line to buy the $10 tickets:
The conservatory itself is a greenhouse attached to the back of a human house and the front portion of the building offers an extensive range of all things butterfly: clothing, jewelry, knicks knacks, toys and cards and I don't know what. A man has to feed his butterfly habit I suppose, but if it isn't a bookstore or a motorcycle dealer I'm a terrible shopper and all this insect stuff left me perplexed. The best part was The Rules, as announced by a cheerleader type in the knick knack store. It turns out one of the rules is that you can't photograph the junque as some of the artwork is copyrighted but one can snap the flutterbies though as long as you don't touch them.
Getting in and out of the atmospherically delicate conservatory is no mean feat. There are double doors and I understand it is a Federal Offense to release butterflies into the outside world. And as unlikely as it might seem it turns out there is some possibility of live actual danger from visiting the greenhouse, so as you can see above we were duly warned. After all that we arrived in the enchanted forest.
I also discovered that butterflies are bloody difficult to photograph. The above picture should have illustrated a positive cloud of the things fluttering about but somehow they are invisible to the camera's lense. Not that you would have known judging by the strenuous efforts of every single visitor to record their magic moments:
Cousin Bob is a pretty intense amateur with a camera and he drags an absolute suitcase ("lead lined" he jokes, not far from the truth) of lenses and other apparatus around behind him. He got into the butterfly thing like butterflies on...honeydew melon:
Which I found rather creepy actually. They sit on the fruit probing it with their snouts and their wings pulsing like vampires sucking up blood. Bob was ecstatic and he sat and smiled like a schoolboy in an adult theater, a mixture of bliss and overwhelm alternating on his features.
I felt like a successful tour guide as I watched him follow the colors as they floated around his delighted face. I could have done without the piped music but the place had an unreal serenity to it, and I'm betting I had a goofy expression on my face too. No butterflies landed on us to bring us luck as they say, but we watched them as they ignored us:
I had to leave after a fair bit of hanging around. I had to work that night and the serenity thing was making my eyes droop. It was an excellent outing and I am going to do it again, often, with visitors or not. The conservatory also offers a bench outside the front door to allow for some people watching if you prefer humans to insects. Or if you are a tour guide bored by innumerable visits to see the butterflies. Hard to immagine but here he is:
I know nothing about lepidoptera but I sure enjoyed the conservatory.
February is a splendid time of year for people who live Up North to check their address books and figure out who they know Down South. My wife's sister, a physician, introduced me to the proper definition of an introvert; that would be a person who recharges their emotional battery with a period of solitude. My wife the extrovert charges hers' with periods of intense sociability. So she is currently charged and I am depleted (but recovering manfully).