Where do you go when there’s an arctic cold line dropping down from Lake Ontario?
*Why, to Rochester’s Highland Park, of course.
*When we there a couple of weeks ago under just such circumstances, snow was falling onto Frederick Law Olmstead’s Upstate treasure. Kids were sledding and skateboarding down the steep slopes of a little dell or dingle, to their parents’ delight. As we made our way farther off, excited voices faded to a snowy hush. Here and there a squirrel skittered, and we said that all we needed was a lonely lamppost. And we found one.
*Our photographer son Josh was in his element, but one of a series of arctic waves came down on us and I’ll confess that after a while I pointed out that according to his own words, I had a debilitating disease (a WEIRD debilitating disease, he corrected me), and the new wave of cold was leaching me out, so while he went forging on, I went backtracking. As for Joyce her journey had been even shorter – from the car to the Lamberton Conservatory.
*Three cheers to Monroe County for maintaining not only the gorgeous park, but also, since 1911, the conservatory. It’s a never-ending battle to keep up such a site, and many operators fall by the wayside. Just short of the century mark, the Lamberton was taken down and then painstakingly reproduced on its original site – an undertaking at once valiant and heroic.
*You can guess that it was noticeably WARMER when we stepped inside, but we were not entering a sweltering ambiance. I only saw a couple of thermometers around the place, and they both read 62. Still, in an instant we were warm, even as we watched the snow (fallen and falling) through the glass-paneled walls.
*I did not set myself to acquire knowledge on the Conservatory’s prolific fauna… I just wandered and wended to grok the whole experience. Certainly I DID observe that one room was pretty much a desert environment (lots of cacti), and one was something of a tropical rain forest (more humid, but not aggressively so), while another was more like our own climate, albeit with an endless summer, or at least an endless late spring.
*Josh joined us eventually, and of course we all got a charge out of the FAUNA mixed in with the flora. A terrarium had four tortoises (I found ’em all) and three box turtles (found two). In one lovely artificial stream I counted seventeen turtles, most “sunning” themselves but some swimming, and in another room another six.
*Keep you eye peeled and you also spot quail zipping in and out of the undergrowth – little guys about five inches tall, I’d say. While we were there, many of them tended to congregate within a few yards of some pans of grain laid down for them, but keep at it long enough and you may find them anywhere in this large space, even across the stream, so I suppose that when the coast is clear they use the footbridge.
*That tropical dome space is the biggest in the conservatory, and it’s also the highest, making space for tall growth. Here there are three stories of growth – both here and in the adjoining room, orchids hang down within reach, along with epiphytes.
*Benches scatter here and there, and on one an elderly man sat reading. There’s a little lending library in the entry lobby, or you can bring a book of your own. It’s a lovely place to sit and read on a wintry icy day, enjoying your book and your warmth and your lovely lush surroundings, glancing up now and then to see the snowy world outside.
*Highland Park covers more than 150 acres, essentially straddling South Ave between Mount Hope and South Goodman, with Highland and Reservoir being the main east-west streets. Besides the glory of the setting itself, the space has been created as an arboretum. With a free brochure you can explore various kinds of plantings. It costs two bucks to enter the Conservatory. The park itself is free for all to wander, dream, explore, and snowboard.