Lebanon Garden Tour

It was a Saturday. We were feeling kind of bored and restless. Tera was with my parents having a sewing day and sleepover, and the boys and I were going a little stir crazy. A sign had caught my eye (probably because it was blue and yellow with a giant sunflower, which is pretty much my exact MO). I also liked the idea that kids were free.

So off to the Lebanon Garden Tour we went. There wasn’t much explanation or description before we embarked on this adventure. Had I know the details of it, I probably would have balked at the time, gas and amount of times that I would have to load and unload the carseats. But I didn’t know any of that going in, so we got our pamphlets and map and were on our way!

The Garden Tour involved 8 different stops. 6 of them were private residences and two of them were public areas. We started off walking, but most of the tour involved driving in a large 10+ mile radius around town.

And I am here to tell you that we had SO MUCH fun. This will absolutely become a yearly tradition for me and my kids! It took us about 4.5 hours – a lot of that was driving time and even more of it was the loading and unloading of carseats. We saw so many beautiful places and got to go in some yards that never would have been open to the public otherwise!

Stops 1 & 2 – A 150 year old tree and the very first original log cabin in Lebanon (not pictured). Throughout the hunt, there were 8 gnomes to find. The boys enjoyed finding each one!

Stop 3- The Brian Manor. We drive past this all the time and I’ve always wanted to know what it looks like inside. While we didn’t get to go inside the manor, we did get to walk the gardens and courtyard. It was beautiful!!

Stop 4- The Pet Cemetery and a feed for baby Orion. Ok, I’m going to be honest…I can’t embrace the idea of a pet cemetery. After growing up in a third world country there are still some things that come across as extreme culture shock, and this was one of them. I distinctly remember as a young child canvassing a cemetery to try to find the resting place of my Uncle, who died as a child. The fact that the pets in this cemetery are treated better than many humans in death was a little bit too much for me. But we did find the gnome and then it was off to the next stop!

Step 5- a Small backyard farm and where my kids urgently needed to go potty. I was excited to walk around this one, but the people there didn’t even give us the time of day! It was really rude and since the boys really needed to go, we headed back to the parking lot without even walking around.

Stop 6 – we were running out of steam at this point, so I didn’t grab any pictures of stop 6! In fact, I left the kids in the van and just took a picture of the gnome and resumed our adventure with stop 7.

Stop 7- This was one of the most beautiful yards I have ever seen. And the treehouse was incredible- I think it may have been nicer than my own regular ol house. Haha.

Also, the entire garden tour we saw lots of other people who were also doing it. I am fairly certain that me and my boys were 4 of maybe 10 people I saw under the age of 70. Hahahaha!

Stop 8- I was totally and completely done by this point, but the boys really wanted to make sure they had seen everything there was to see before leaving and calling it quits. This yard was huge and had an upper and lower level that we spent a little bit of time exploring.

And that was a wrap on the Lebanon Garden Tour! Next year I know to bring snacks and some things to do in the van while we drive from place to place. It’s also not very stroller friendly so I think just carrying the baby would be much easier. I already have it on my calendar for next year because we will for sure be back to do this! So fun!