Wichita Adventure – Botanica

We made a quick trip to Wichita for the long Memorial Day weekend. We attended Madison’s graduation on Saturday night so we didn’t leave for our trip until Sunday. It’s less than three hours to Wichita from where we live so it’s an easy trip for us. And yet, we’ve never made the trip until now.

We found a lot of things to do in Wichita. There were a few things we wanted to do that were not open because of the holiday so we are definitely planning to go back for another adventure sometime.

 

 

Our first stop was at Botanica – a botanical garden located in the heart of Wichita. We got there pretty late in the day and didn’t have a lot of time t hang out, but that was fine with us because it was a hot day. Noah found a kaleidoscope that we could use to look at some of the plants. That was neat and something I’d never seen before.

 

Botanica also had a model train that was running around a model town. Some volunteers were running the trains and helping the kids complete a scavenger hunt in the model town.

 

One of the older gentlemen told us ‘I like your shoes’. I assumed he was talking about Noah’s pretty blue shoes, but he corrected me and said that he was talking about mine. (I was on my knee scooter and had my splint on my foot.) I laughed and said thank you and that I knew it was highly fashionable. Then he followed it up with another comment -“Some ladies will do anything for attention.” *insert shocked face here*

 

The Children’s Garden

 

One of our priority stops was the Children’s Garden. It was easy to find because of this neat rainbow canopy that was stretched across the entrance.

As you can tell, Noah was full speed ahead all day. It was hard to keep up with him but I love his spirit of exploration. He’s also our map guy.

 

 

 

I loved all the pretty colors were there reflected on the sidewalk.

 

 

We had to stop at the pretty sunflower water feature. The water was not cold enough but it felt good.

 

 

They we found a place where we could water some of the plants. They had old-fashioned water spigots and watering cans for us to use. The water coming out in this area was freezing, which was so nice in the heat of the day!

 

 

The Children’s Garden had a music made that was full of colorful musical instruments of all different kinds. We could hear the music from the different instruments echoing all throughout the gardens.

 

 

Perhaps my favorite part of the children’s area was these red-painted french horns but they also had a treehouse for the kids to play in and some tree “monsters.”

 

Photographing the Photographer

 

 

Emily took a lot of pictures of the flowers and the landscapes for us. When we were leaving, I though to myself “I didn’t see very many colorful flowers” but when I looked back at Emily’s pictures, I clearly did.

 

I love how she appreciates the blooms even if they’re not perfectly formed or in peak bloom. She has a great eye for photography. Many of the pictures in the gallery below were provided by Emily. Don’t forget that you can click on any of the photos in the gallery to view them larger.