Day One. St. Louis Botanical Garden

We drove to St. Louis yesterday, as our flight to Canada leaves from the airport.  We stayed overnight in my favorite hotel, The Seven Gables Inn.  I have been staying there while in St. Louis since Milo was born.
The Inn was recently purchased and is undergoing a major facelift.  We stayed in one of the newly renovated rooms which had some neat upgrades, mostly in the bathroom!  The shower was huge and had a great shower head.  The heated, automatically cleaning toilet was a unique experience.  Having a warm seat was welcome.  The bidet features were quite interesting as well!

Since we had a few hours to kill before our flight, we spent them at the Botanical Gardens.  Wandering through uniquely designed gardens, featuring different plants was amazing.

Sundial

 In the Turkish Garden, we saw this cool sundial and Heather and I sat on the throne.

Heather and I on he Turkish throne!

View from the throne looking up!

Red door entrance to the Turkish Garden

We continued to meander through the hosta garden, of which Mom would be very jealous!  

Heather, Vince and I wandered through the Memorial Maze.  We thought of the scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where the hedges grabbed Cedric and Fleur.  

In the Climatron, we saw a number of plants that we get our favorite foods from!  I sent Mom pictures of the Hairy Wild Coffee plant

, along with the Cacao plant

Wild Hairy Coffee

Cacao plant
 

We also saw a few waterfalls and decided to begin our photo collage of waterfalls!  (We plan o see some more in Iceland!)