Staycation

I went up to South Deerfield Massachusetts with a friend yesterday to the Butterfly Conservatory, it was amazing. They have, as you can expect, hundreds of butterflies flying around inside the conservatory and what I got a chuckle over was the last rule, about not having any hitchhikers on you when you leave the conservatory. That have a set of doors you have to pass through with fans blowing on you to knock off any butterflies, you then have to enter another room before you exit the exhibit.

So here are some of the photographs I took…

The blue butterflies were the hardest to photograph, I was chasing them all over the conservatory. They just didn’t want to land on any of the plants and when they did they had their wings closed (they are the brown butterflies with what look like eyes on their wings). Finally a woman who was also taking pictures spotted one with its wings open and called me over there.

They also have birds inside the conservatory...

They had a number of other birds but they were harder to photograph because of plants being in the way and they also had a number of small quail running around underfoot. One of the employees said that they have no fear of humans and tend to get stepped on so they try to frighten them to stay away but it is not working. I stomped my foot next to one and it didn't flinch.

The only thing was that it was very warm and humid inside the conservatory, but understandingly so. After all many of the butterflies there were tropical butterflies.

We decided that we didn't want to eat at the restaurant attached to the conservatory because of all the kids running around, so instead we went down the road to the Chandler's Restaurant at Yankee Candle shops. It was a good choice. We just about had the whole place to ourselves, and while we were there lady’s from the Red Hat Society came in and went to one of the private rooms.

I was a good getaway day, a good “me” day to relax.