Franklin Park Conservatory, Chihuly Glass and Butterflies

Yesterday my friend, Marta, and I went down to Columbus for a day of shopping and sightseeing. On the recommendation of another of her friends, we went to the Franklin Park Conservatory. The conservatory several rooms which are set up as tropical, desert, rain forest etc. Among all of the beautiful plants, there are displays of the beautiful Chihuly Glass. I must admit that I had never heard of Chihuly glass before yesterday but I became an instant fan!! One of the exhibits was called Blooms and Butterflies. The room had an abundance of tropical plants, flowers, waterfalls, Chihuly glass and butterflies. In another room, we walked through a tunnel and looked up to see the most beautiful ceiling ever!There was a really neat display outside. Here are a few shots including a picture of the guy who has to clean all that glass!Perhaps the highlight, though, was the release of butterflies into the tropical room. The conservatory buys cocoons of various kinds of butterflies. As the cocoons hatch each day in a special room, they put them in a carrier to be transported to the tropical room where they are released. The young man who released them also told us about each of the kinds of butterflies. It was really neat.Here are just a few of the butterflies released yesterday. This little guy chose to land on my pant leg. This is after I transferred him from my pants to my hand.It was an amazing day topped off with some shopping at a couple of the Columbus malls with lunch at Cheesecake Factory and dinner at Max and Ermas.