This One Time at Phipps Conservatory . . .

This weekend the 2015 Spring Flower Show opened at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens . Jon and I went to it today (even though he’s still getting over a bad cold) because he will be busy the next few weeks with high school musicals and the New Kensington Fire Dept. #1 Cash Bash.

I don’t blog about all of my outings to Phipps. However, I want to share some of today’s photos (all of the non-boat ones are Jonathan’s) for two reasons:

1.) You readers in blog land might plan your own trip. The show runs until April 12. (Which is the same date as the New Kensington Fire Dept. #1 Cash Bash. Please buy a Cash Bash ticket from my husband.)

2.) I am weary of the cold, the gray skies, the sickness, and most of all the dark, evil (local, national, global) events of the past few months. The internet needs to have less hateful comments and more pictures of flowers. (The ‘net already has enough cat memes.)

Phipps used “April showers bring May flowers” as the theme for this show.  I really like this boat:

Note that two women pose for a camera in the upper left corner. I don’t think that I could have walked in any direction today inside Phipps without running into somebody taking a picture. Also, on every single trip to Phipps, I watch people take selfies in front of the beautiful flowers. I am completely fine with this.  I don’t understand why the media sometimes uses the label “Selfie Generation” as if it’s a bad thing. As long as people enjoy themselves (and don’t hurt anybody else), who cares if they save the moment with a snapshot?

We approached the boat from the port side.

Jon said, “I wonder where they got a rowboat?”

I joked, “I bet that they snagged it from a state park marina.”

When we walked around to the starboard side, I saw the DCNR sticker:

This is the same sticker that the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources required Jon and I to purchase in order to launch our kayaks at PA state parks. Also, this sticker says “2015” on it. I believe that this is somebody’s personal rowboat that he or she actively uses.

When should you visit Phipps, dear reader?

Several years ago, Jon read on Phipps’ own website that Palm Sunday is their busiest day of the year. We avoid visiting on this day.

Here is my only personal experience with a failed attempt to visit:

This past winter, we tried to visit Phipps’ on the day after Christmas.

We should have known better.

December 26 fell on a Friday. We had out-of-town relatives (Jon’s sister Sarah and her husband and child) in New Kensington for the long weekend. Before we loaded those out-of-town relatives as well as the rest of the extended family into several cars to take them to Phipps, we should have realized that everybody else in Greater Pittsburgh had the exact same idea.

Jon and I accept that the conservatory gets very busy at certain times of the year. People show up during the evening hours of Phipp’s Winter Flower Show just to see the outdoor light exhibit. Phipps’ even put the following warning on their website:

Holidays have long been a favorite time to visit Phipps. Many families hold special events at Phipps, and holiday celebrations offer a chance to relive memories. Plan ahead, as some holidays can be among our busiest visitor days.

However, we absolutely did not expect Phipps to be as crowded and busy as it was on the evening of December 26. When we got there at 7 p.m., valet-parked cars filled their entire front lawn. The line just to get into the main entrance stretched from the entrance to the street, about 50 feet away.  I wish that I had a photo of this. We never saw the place even remotely this busy before, even when we went there to see the Dale Chiluly glass show several years ago.

I should mention here that our group included a toddler who was going to be awake past his bedtime. Yeah, the night suddenly seemed less and less fun.

So . . . . .  we decided to punt on our plans to tour Phipps. We drove around various neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights instead.

This story ended well for me because Jon and I went back to Phipps two nights later. The Sunday after Christmas was much less crowded at Phipps than was the Friday after Christmas. I watched two random marriage proposals and heard a bunch of screaming and clapping from a third proposal.

Here’s the moral: Think twice before you take your family out for a Friday night on the town if that night is also December 26. (This was the same night that “hundreds of teenagers” closed down the Monroeville Mall.)

Also, remember to avoid visiting Phipps’ Conservatory and Botanical Gardens on Palm Sunday.