Tora Rocha, Lake Merritt Park Supervisor, described the Bonsai Garden light display at the Autumn Lights Festival as “off the hook.” After checking with my daughter, I learned that this was a good thing; something akin to a phone ringing off the hook. I took it as a big compliment.

Randi Keppeler, BGLM Events Director, took it upon herself to design the lighting scheme, source the lights and manage the lighting installation. She even organized the fund raising to pay for the lights. This was a labor of love that took months of concentrated effort to accomplish. She found lanterns to hang on our shade structures, individual strands of lights to drape from our landscape trees, colorful plastic cups to light our pathways and progressive light tubes to simulate water flowing down our dry waterfall into our dry stream bed.

Anyone who knows the excellent work that Randi does putting on the Mammoth Auction & Sale is aware of the dedication and hard work with which she attacks any project she takes on. If you were not able to attend this year’s Autumn, take a look at the photos of the event posted here. You will see that she outdid herself with this effort. I am sure that the more than 3,200 visitors to the Garden during this event will agree, that Randi’s creation is truly “off the hook.”