Thanksgiving in NJ - part 3

Day 3 in New Jersey (11/23/2010): we drive up to West Point in New York. It's not very interesting, and due to heightened security we had a tour guide take us around. We attempt to go to High Point on the way down, but we get lost (the car GPS returned a funny location in an entirely different city when we searched for "High Point") and head home. The day consisted largely of sleeping in the car.

Day 4 in New Jersey (11/24/2010): Longwood Gardens! I vaguely remember going there when I was young. I recall rolling down a hill, collecting leaves, and a fountain called the "eye of water", but it turns out there's a lot more to it than just that.

When we went, most of the leaves had already fallen off, but some were still quite colorful:

There were still a couple interesting plants outside. These were small poofs of tiny leaves:

There was also the standard wildlife. This was a very curious squirrel who came right up to us.

And geese!

I got film-stingy again: I should have taken another one right after this next shot, to capture the splash from these 4 geese landing in the lake. But I was at the end of the roll and I wanted to save one for a comparison shot (more on that later).

We had a really overpriced lunch (including the saltiest cream of mushroom soup), then continued to the conservatory (giant greenhouse), which was really cool.

This is their green hallway: there are sponges tied to the wall with grassy plants growing on them. We saw something like this at the Triennale in Milan.

This is the first time we've seen cyclamens, which have petals that turn up while the base of the flower is still pointed down.

Here's some purple flowers (some kind of tulip?) lit by a sunbeam.

In their main hall, they were preparing their Christmas display, which I guess is a big deal, because after they're done, ticket prices go up and they start issuing timed reservations.

They also had a really cool bonsai collection. This one started training in 1909:

And this one is a whole grove of trees!

There were many other cool plants in the conservatory.

Including a whole room of cactuses:

Outdoors, I was amused by their giant sequoias. Apparently they don't grow so well on the east coast, and needed some extra protection from squirrels.

That's netting wrapped around the lower trunk, ending with a ring of exposed wires connected to this thing:

I believe it is a solar-powered squirrel zapper.