Day 14 was a Friday, and the goal was to make it to the cottage for dinner (photos 1-2).

Andrea and Jacob had breakfast at the hotel restaurant again (CoCo’s), and then we loaded up the car and checked out. Our first stop wasn’t too far, just along the parkway (photo 3) — it was time for butterflies at the Butterfly Conservatory!

We checked in for the parking, paid our entrance fee, and then had a “digital photo template” taken where we stood with our hands out like we were holding butterflies. They snapped the photo, and we could pick it up (for a fee) at the exit. There was an intro documentary about the life of butterflies and the conservatory, but we stood watching that for about 2 minutes before jumping ship and heading into the greenhouse.

The greenhouse is about 100′ x 75′ or so in area, with a walking path that mostly goes up the right side, and then starting at the upper right corner, draws a big S over to the upper left, back to the lower right, and then exiting mid-left-side. The first two sides are relatively flat, while the middle S rises up by a small waterfall area, and then drops back down to the exit (photos 4-194).

There were lots of tropical-looking plants and trees, and the greenhouse was kept quite warm for the butterflies. Most of the butterflies were flying around at normal levels, but some were hanging out at the top of trees, enjoying the fruit and blossoms on the trees (photos 20-21). Many of the butterflies were quite easy to digitally capture, either by personality (hanging out on leaves in stretched wing formation) or simply numbers (there were lots of orange ones). Others, like the bright blue ones, were much harder to capture in photos or video. And still, others were more like inanimate objects — they were practically immobilized on the feeding dishes full of oranges.

We saw a statue or two, some waterfalls and streams, a few koi, etc., but the real draw was obviously the butterflies. All three of us ended up with them landing on us at least once (Andrea and I on our heads, Jacob on his arms). When they did, we took LOTS of photos. We were like butterfly paparazzi. I was using my DSLR and snapping away, trying to capture some in flight, particularly the blue ones, while Jacob and Andrea used their iPhones. The really good ones of the blue butterflies? Those are all Andrea and Jacob. I sucked at capturing the blue ones.

After we exited, carefully checking to make sure we had no winged hitchhikers, we picked up the butterfly photo (which we got on paper and could later download digitally). It’s cute, with a nice background from the conservatory and three butterflies photoshopped into our hands. Of course, it’s not real, but it was a cute souvenir (photo 194). We picked up a few things from the gift shop, and then finally headed out.

We grabbed some fast food for our lunch and plotted our route to the cottage. We had enjoyed the toll roads in the U.S., most of which shaved huge times off our routes, and so we opted for the 407 without spending much time figuring out the cost. Cough. Oops. Don’t get me wrong, we got on just after Hamilton (photos 195-197), and made a bathroom pit-stop in the north part of Toronto, and the road was great. It was steady for traffic but not super busy. We were checking out some of the info about it as we neared the end, only to see the cost was about $1 per kilometre. I liked it, sure, but not sure if I liked it THAT much. Oops, too late. (FYI, the bill just arrived — $68 for the route. I don’t know that I’ll do that again unless I’m desperate or worried about traffic…admittedly, it was probably the BEST time to do it, because it was the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, and traffic was heating up out of Toronto, but still…$68?).

We stopped just north of Lindsay and picked up some fresh corn and fruit, and then on to the cottage (north of Rosedale, south of Coboconk). We had dinner with the family and relaxation, with most of the “driving” portion of the trip complete.

We notched another 309 km for the day, but it was the photos that were “insane” — 838 photos and videos for the day, curated down to 197.

2023-07b August – Day 14 Butterfly conservatory and cottage

197 photos