Chihuly Nights

The trip will begin with a 7 a.m. departure from Kansas City as we travel in a 15 passenger high top van with individual seating driven by our very own president Dan Burkholder. Dan has driven us on many trips before and is an excellent driver with a commercial license and spoils us with drop off and pick up service door to door. Lidded beverages are allowed in the van.

A bathroom and refreshment stop in Columbia, MO and we will venture on to have lunch at Schlafly Bankside in historic St Charles, MO a brewpub which has an extensive menu of sandwiches, salads and pizzas.

After lunch we will visit the Sophia M Sachs Butterfly House part of the Missouri Botanical Garden family of gardens. The conservatory houses tropical plants also is home to over 60 tropical butterfly species. The surrounding outdoor gardens are filled with plants that attract native butterflies and provide host plants for their caterpillars that will inspire you to ad more of the plants to your own gardens.

After the butterflies we will check into our hotel, the Hampton Inn in Chesterfield, MO. Room options include king bed and two full bed rooms. There will be a bit of time to get settled into your room and get refreshed before dinner at Pietro’s a family run Italian restaurant with a selection of affordably priced pasta, salad an entrée options.

Next we will venture to Missouri Botanical Garden for the feature event of this trip. You will have approximately 4 hours to view the gardens, check out the more than twenty Chihuly glass sculptures ranging from collections of single pieces in the Climatron to towers of glass soaring over the gardens. One of the favorite pieces is a tree made of hundreds of red, orange and yellow twisty, curvy glass tendrils in a lollipop tree that seemed right out of a Dr Seuss story by daylight but in the darkness glowed brightly like some otherworldly sun that had been transported by some portal into the gardens.

After a well deserved night of sleep we will be having complimentary breakfast in the hotel before stopping at Farmers & Artisans Market of O’Fallon a farmers and artist market that morning before winding our way back home with stops in Columbia for lunch where we will eat at the Syrian Kitchen serving Middle Eastern and Mediterranean fare and at a the Cheese Store selling a selection of house made cheeses, as well as, breads, sauces and condiments from small scale producers from the Midwest.

We plan to return to Kansas City around 5 p.m.

The cost of the Chihuly Nights trip is $326 for single occupancy and $242 per person for double occupancy for Gardeners Connect Members and includes travel, hotel, breakfast at the hotel, and admission to both Chihuly Nights at MoBot and the Butterfly House. All lunches and dinner are not included in the trip price.

You can register online or mail a check to: Gardeners Connect at 5738 Willow Ave, Raytown, MO 64133.

Registration is open until the trip is sold out. The trip is rain or shine. All ticket purchases are final and refunds will not be given for any reason. Tickets are transferable to another Gardeners Connect member. Donation receipts can be issued for any unused ticket at the request of the attendee. It is recommended that attendees check on trip insurance from their insurer or credit card issuer.

In the event that this trip is canceled by Gardeners Connect, full refunds will be provided to attendees.

For more information, email questions to info@gardenersconnect.org or call Brian Chadwick-Robinson at 913-302-4234.

See you in the van!