Whispering into the gardens

The Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival is held every year
at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park.

Pillars across the foot bridge. Stepping stones in the garden. Candles floating on the river.

Our first lantern lighting festival was unlike any festival I have ever been to, and yet it has stayed with me, every night since August 18th.

The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Saint Paul, Minnesota, hosts the Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival annually in August. It is held during the three days of Obon, a Japanese holiday when ancestral spirits are said to revisit their families.

In character
By day, the event is a festive celebration of Japanese culture. The paths are lined with bonsai plants, kimonos, and characters of the written language in calligraphy ink. Japanese folk dances decorate the stage while black belts demonstrate martial arts in the lawn.

By night, the festival takes on an ethereal feel. Conversations drift to a subtle whisper, photographers get out their strongest lenses and the gardens become illuminated in lights.

Eight States

We tried a different route home from the car show in Indiana and headed north
through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, crossing the Mackinac Bridge in construction.

Summer got its way this week, with temperatures in the Twin Cities lingering in the 90's and the atmospheric conditions pushing the "Feels Like" gauge over 100 degrees. Aside from the realization that Minnesota has some of the sharpest temperature swings in the state, the week gave me an excuse to hunker down inside and get some work done.