We went with some friends to the orchid show at the New York Botanical Garden the other day. First we stopped at the house in Briarcliff to pick up Ken. Next stop was Chita in Pearl River. And then we went via a very circuitous route through New Jersey, and over the George Washington Bridge to the Botanical Garden where we met the fourth member of our party, Menchie. On the way back we discovered that the GPS was again taking us via a tortuous route. It was lucky that I noticed that a journey which should take about fifty minutes was actually projected to take one hour and fifty minutes. It turned out that somehow our GPS settings had been changed to avoid tolls. Once this was changed we got back quickly enough. We very much enjoyed the orchid show and the opportunity to get together with some old friends we don’t see that often.

According to Wikipedia:

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a greenhouse located toward the western end of the New York Botanical Garden. Enid Annenberg Haupt (May 13, 1906 – October 25, 2005) was an American publisher and philanthropist whose gifts supported horticulture, the arts, architectural and historic preservation, and cancer research. Inspiration for the park and the conservatory stemmed from Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth. The couple had visited the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew on their honeymoon and thought a similar park and conservatory should be built for New York City. The conservatory was designed by the major greenhouse company of the late 1890s, Lord and Burnham Co. The design was modeled after the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Garden and Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Italian Renaissance style. Groundbreaking took place on January 3, 1899 and construction was completed in 1902 at a cost of $177,000. The building was constructed by John R. Sheehan under contract for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Since the original construction, major renovations took place in 1935, 1950, 1978, and 1993.