Road Trip! Excitement at the Botanical Garden!

As you probably all know by now, I’m a huge Chihuly glass work fan. So much so that I went two days to the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) to see his installations and to further explore this beautiful garden. I was looking for a little excitement by going on my road trip and it turned out I got a little more excitement than I bargained for. 😲😲😲

On Thursday, September 21, I decided to go to MBG for a second full day. Because it was warm and the garden is huge, I decided to rent a scooter to save wear and tear on my occasionally tweaky knee. It was a total hoot to zip around the garden exploring whatever I wanted. I decided to explore the outer areas of the garden I had not made it to on Tuesday. After scooting around for about an hour, I started noticing a helicopter flying over the garden very frequently - about every 10-15 minutes. It was actually quite distracting due to the noise. It certainly didn’t contribute to my zen, let’s put it that way. In fact, I had chatted with a couple of other garden visitors and we all wondered about the helicopter. But, we all reasoned that maybe the hospitals nearby were conducting maneuvers. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I was having a blast scooting around exploring a rather remote area of the garden and was almost at the area farthest from the entrance. I was on my way to the Bavarian Garden when a gentleman who worked there approached me and advised me not to go any further. Apparently an escaped convict was on the loose, having walked out of a hospital he was being treated at around 4 am that morning. The employee said the authorities thought the escaped convict might be hiding in that corner of the garden. And they weren’t sure what he might do and may be dangerous. He barely got the words out of his mouth when I blurted out the words, “I’m outta here!” and hit the reverse and scooted faster than lightning to a more trafficked area of the garden. You have never seen a wonky-hatted older woman scooting anywhere so fast, in fact! Just as I got to a more trafficked area, a golf cart of police officers with guns drove by me into the area I had just left. Yikes!!! I’m sure my eyes were about to pop out of my head. Stuff just got real!

I did continue to explore the garden, but looked up the news and it was all over the St. Louis local and national news. ALL the major networks… I did get to see what the guy looked like and what he had been wearing when he left the hospital. As I quickly scooted along, I could see and hear the helicopter all afternoon and I kept my eyes open for someone crawling out from behind the shrubbery. Needless to say, I didn’t take as many photos that afternoon but I did enjoy seeing more areas of the garden where other people were.

I learned that the escapee was caught at 8 pm that night very close to the hospital he escaped from. In reality he was nowhere near (miles away) the garden at any point the day I was there, which was likely why they didn’t completely close it. What are the odds I would encounter that situation the day I was there? That was a first for sure!

So, I did have even more of an adventure that day than I intended! But I was none the worse for it. I traded conversation with other visitors there and we were all amazed by the situation, especially since the convict would have had to scale a very tall iron fence to even get in the garden. 🧐🧐🧐

But, as most travel tends to do, things work themselves out just fine and you are left with a good story or two to tell your family and friends for the rest of your days. But if you ever do see a slightly frazzled lady with a wonky hat literally zooming through an attraction you are at someday, you may want to ask a few questions! 🤣🤣🤣

And, as always, a few more gorgeous photos, even from that afternoon… And if you’d like to see even more travel photos, check out my new bbbwithdeanna Instagram account