Holden Arboretum

A few months ago, I bought a Groupon for the Holden Arboretum. A coworker recommended that we go there, so after a quick perusal of their website, I thought that it seemed very much like a place we'd like. 

I wanted to wait until the latest possible date, since I knew that meant the leaves would be glorious fall colors. We used the Groupon exactly three days before it expired, and I proved myself correct: it was glorious. You might have thought that two people had never seen leaves, the way we took pictures. 

When we got there, we discovered that it was a family Halloween event, with people in costumes everywhere. The event pricing was different from the regular pricing, but since we didn't go for the event and since we didn't have children with us, they let us in for just the Groupon (but not without a few embarrassing remarks from Carson...). 

When I got home, I discovered that we had taken nearly 300 pictures, which is indeed quite a feat. However many of them are multiples and can be deleted. Also, you can be thankful because I did not post all of them. 

Carson took most of these. He liked the bumble bee in the center of this picture.

And this bumble bee.

And I thought the scarecrows were fun. Look at the one on the broomstick on the bush in the background. It even has a pumpkin cat on the back!

And of course these hiking scarecrows were clever.

We weaved our way through crowds of people (we seriously felt strange there without kids) and found a trail to walk on.
I am proud of this picture, though truly I can only thank the leaves and I guess Carson's gene pool :) The colors are so great.

One day, I'll gather these foot pictures and do something with them.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil... Carson's idea.

I couldn't help it, some leaves came home with me and are drying in a book.

When he sees a fallen-down tree, Carson cannot help himself.

We went to an observation deck thing and Carson enjoyed finding all the varieties in the pamphlet. His vision isn't the best, so I enjoyed reading the signs aloud to him and then taking pictures through the leaves.

There was a tree with initials carved in it, but Carson didn't bring a knife so he carved our initials into a wet handrail with a stick. This doesn't say anything about the duration of our relationship :)

I love the light coming down through the leaves.

A black squirrel. Carson pointed out that they look more like rodents than the regular gray ones and I had to agree.

At about this point, it began to drizzle just a bit. The leaves protected us and I barely felt a raindrop.

My hair proved to be a decent autumn color. I think it's funny that I have a blond streak there on the bottom.

Our next stop was at the wildflower garden and there were some really unique varieties next to familiar plants.

These little babies are so sweet.

Carson found "the perfect" walking stick, which I didn't let him keep. I tried to get him to take a picture with it though, for memories' sake. He wouldn't, so I did.

Visit and we'll take a trip out here! (that was a blatent hint to some of you) I don't think we got to see most of the arboretum and we walked around for several hours. I hope to go back in the spring - it must be an entirely different looking place!