US Botanic Garden in December 2014 - Part I
/We made our annual holiday trek down to the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC on the last Sunday of the year. Their holiday display includes models of Washington area monuments constructed of natural materials such as pine cone scales, willows branches, grape vine tendrils and acorn caps. The slide show below shows 6 of the models. Some things to note: the dome of the Jefferson Memorial Is some kind of guard with the stem still attached (1); the Smithsonian Castle is very ornate (2) so I included a close up of the right side to show the stick-bark-seed construction (3); the National Museum of the American Indian is made mostly of shelf fungus (4); and the US Botanic Garden glows from within (5); the capitol is one of the larger models (and it doesn’t have scaffolding around the dome as the real one does right now) (6); and the Supreme Court building (7) is very ornate so I included a close up of the columns that were just as ornate and more colorful than the actual building (8).
The other part of the holiday display involves model trains. The structures to the side of the tracks change every year. This year it was light houses. The winding path through the exhibit was packed with people that had stood in line for over an hour to get in - many with young children. But the wait was worth it. The child in front of us had a ‘Thomas’ lunch box and was very excited to see the trains. The older couple behind us had visited many of the lighthouses and were surprised at how many of the models they recognized. These models are built of natural materials like the monuments. A good time was had by all!
