A winter visit to the conservatory

It’s one of my favorite things to do during winter! We haven’t been to the conservatory since before everything shut down in early 2020. And naturally, things are different now. Advance reservations are required. Oh wait, now I remember that we made reservations at one point in the last almost 3 years. But something came up and we weren’t able to make it. You can make reservations the day of, which is what I did. There were plenty of openings throughout the day about 3 hours prior to opening.

We’re over our 10 plus days of deep freeze and I thought it would be nice to visit the conservatory while it’s relatively nice. Highs are in the 30s now which feels absolutely BALMY compared to what we’ve had since before Christmas. So I ditched the winter coat because I didn’t want to be carrying it around with me. I wore a bulky sweatshirt with my down vest which was nearly perfect. Hubby also wore his vest. It was a tad chilly between the car and the building but we did okay!

We used to enter at the doors to the conservatory where you used to be able to hang your coat. Those days are gone, at least for now while they require reservations. You now enter through the Visitors Center where they scan your bar code for your time slot. And because we entered at a different spot than what used to be normal, our first room was the fern room.

We then wandered around to the different areas of the conservatory. It’s so warm and tropical in there and it smells divine! You feel transported to the tropics in the middle of winter. Ah…….

Next up: the sunken gardens. It was beautiful but neither of us expected it to be all white. The room was also filled with the aroma of one of those flowers, probably those smaller blooms on long stems. I believe they are paperwhites.

Various photos from other rooms.

We ended at the Tropical Encounters Exhibit where many beautiful birds were flying around. There is also a huge fish tank with many varieties to peruse and other containers with snakes, frogs and a tarantula! At the end of this exhibit is a sloth. He tries to camouflage himself but I found him!!! And he moved a little bit while we stood there.

If you’re in the twin cities area, do pay a visit to the conservatory. It’s such a nice break from winter!! There is also a zoo but that is mostly outdoors and we didn’t venture over there. But many kids with their parents were checking it out. Here’s a link to their website in case anybody is interested.

I’m working on my “year in photos” for 2022 so stay tuned for that post coming soon!