Last week my daughter-in-law asked me if I wanted to go with her to the Animals Aglow Lantern Festival at the St. Louis Zoo. My answer, of course, was “Heck yes!” I don’t get much of an opportunity to do fun things unless I plan them, so it’s a real treat to be able to sit back and let someone else take the wheel (literally and figuratively).

I love the Great Hunter, but his extracurricular activity planning seems to end with hunting, fishing and eating out with his son and daughter-in-law. Anything else, it’s up to me. Although, to be fair, he did plan an outing for my birthday to the Muny Opera to see South Pacific…in 2013. Oh yes, and he planned a week’s vacation in 1998.

We were sitting out in the backyard last night and he asked me if I was looking forward to going to Virginia next week. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am the one leading the way (again, literally and figuratively) and we weren’t paying out the wazoo for dog boarding, I might be. He then said, “Let’s go on a cruise next year.” “Okay,” I said, “you plan it. What are we going to do with the dogs?” Nothing further on that discussion.

So back to why I was originally posting. Animals Aglow Lantern Festival. Our St. Louis Zoo is a wonderful place. I’ve never been to the Zoo in the dark and seeing all the beautiful lanterns lit along the way was really a lot of fun. The Zoo describes it as :

a luminous glow of 60 towering lanterns depicting animals, plants and traditional Chinese elements.

We got there before it was dark, so we took the Zooline Railroad and rode around the park a few times until it got dark. After dark was when the magic appeared. Here’s a sampling:

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I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did seeing the real thing.