And Now For Something Completely Different

If you have been reading this, you know I love the alpine section of botanical gardens (I am trying to stop my habit of random capitalizations*).  Well in a tiny Arctic adjacent town, the Akureyri botanical gardens is not what I expected. First and foremost the collection of Alpine plants was fantastic.

The entrance (not even the whole thing!) of the Alpine Section

And, as you can see, that section was placed in a beautiful rock garden. A first for me because non-Arctic botanical gardens always have to put them in special soil and with some air cooling. Here they were out in the open because the weather fit them.

Then they were arranged into section of alpine ecosystems. There was (in the center) the Asian section with plants from the Himalayas, Afghanistan's mountains and Asian Russia. There were also separate groups from the Alps, the Arctic, North American east and North American western states, the Atlas Mountains of Africa and the Andes of South America. It was a alpine garden enthusiasts dream (that would be me, and a very patient Eddie).

*PS - By the way, I refuse to take the blame for my punctuation. My college english professor said that punctuation was designed to make the reading more accessible - hard and fast rules were not always the best for this (the idiotic rules about the colon for example).

** PPS -She also said that more than 3 mistakes in spelling or grammar paper would result in an F for the paper. However,  my papers tended to come back as an A (I write well) but the comment "Typical Grammar and Spelling Mistakes" - this was before spell check. My papers were (wait for it) TYPED out on an IBM Selectric). I loved that teacher.

*** PPPS - This was at USC in my Freshman Year, so maybe it is time to rethink that advice.

****PPPPS - Nah.

***** Last PS - She was also the TA that walked into our lab / class one day (it WAS 1976) and said, "God, I've had a horrible day - does anyone have a valium?" And literally 4 of us did.