Powell Gardens

Friday was a good day for a 40-plus mile trip on US Highway 50 from KC to an arboretum just over the Jackson County line in a rural setting. Powell Gardens is primarily financed by a private foundation with some assistance from other foundation and corporate donors. It is well done. Plant species are identified. Unique settings are crafted, i.e., a large water garden and "Living Wall". The price of admission is nominal. I recommend visiting, although the display of flora could use a larger variety of trees.

The Gardens is featuring until October a "Jurassic Park" exhibit of dinosaurs, life-size replicas of these prehistoric creatures placed here and there amidst the flora. There are interpretive plaques sponsored by the soon to be extinct Aquila that explain the geologic history, scientific concepts and each species of dinosaur exhibited. The only out-of-place representation on these plaques was a small cartoon logo of a Flintstones-like character leading a smiling Dino-like creature by a leash. What was this? It undermined the science that was show-cased by the plaques and exhibits, giving impressionable young minds the idea that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Could it have been a salve for the fundamentalist Christians who might view the exhibits, skip the text of the plaques and affirm their wacky biblical interpretations of man co-existing with dinosaurs from the sixth day of Creation? I think Powell Gardens has some explaining to do, because with this cartoon logo they trashed their own exhibit.