POWERGRAMS

28 are found tossed within the crater. "Shocked quartz," recognized worldwide as proof of a meteor strike, is spread across the crater. Today, 3,000 families live within the huge hole now filled with upscale homes and gardens. Many of the best sites that excite scientists, unfortunately, are on private property. King and others get advance permission for research and education events. In March, 161 people, including faculty and students from colleges in Florida and Georgia, took the tour promoted by the Wetumpka Impact Crater Commission. Several signs on roads around the crater guide tourists on self-tours. "It's hard to relate to 85 million years ago," Tankersley says. "I tell the kids to think of your sofa at home. About 1 inch of it would represent how long man has lived on Earth. This crater is the oldest thing in the state of Alabama that you can put your hands on." Tours currently begin in the Crater Room on the second floor of the City Administration Building, where paintings depict what might have happened to Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis – the dinosaur discovered by King and displayed at Birmingham's McWane Science Center – when the meteor struck. Bald Knob, which is 450 feet higher than nearby Main Street, is the prime viewing area open only to guided tours. When funding is available, the former welcome center on 26 acres donated by the state along Highway 231 will be reopened as the Wetumpka Crater Science and Interpretive Center. "It's a huge undertaking. It's still a long ways off," Tankersley says of the future headquarters, as she looks at depictive murals by well-known artist/lecturer Karen Carr. "Karen said our crater is an environment you can't find anywhere else. She was so mesmerized by the whole thing when she visited." In the Jasmine Hill Gardens Don't ever expect to hear Jim Inscoe utter "It's all Greek to me." On the other hand, that phrase literally could be his motto. Since 1971, Inscoe and his wife, Elmore, have frequently visited Greece. They may know more about Greek mythology, architecture and traditions than anyone in the county that shares his wife's name. They certainly know more than anyone else about one of the nation's premier gardens, Jasmine Hill. The 20 acres of year-round floral beauty started by Benjamin and Mary Fitzpatrick nearly 90 years ago was eventually sold to the Inscoes, who had befriended the widow while caring for the gardens and its vast collection of marble, bronze, porcelain and terra-cotta Greek and Roman statues. One of several statues of Nike is admired for various reasons by the 20,000 annual visitors. "Kids always say she looks like she was in a wet T-shirt contest," Jim Inscoe says of the goddess wearing a clinging garment. Another statue of a maiden of Acropolis garnered the attention of a famous visitor. "Whoopi Goldberg was here filming and said she liked her because the maiden's hair looked like her dreadlocks," Inscoe says. Inscoe doesn't hide his pride as he walks along the wide stone pathways that weave around more than 40 museum-quality statues and seven fountains and pools. The stones were blasted and hand-crafted onsite by Civilian Conservation Corps workers during the Depression. "We've had garden experts say Jasmine Hill probably has more stone incorporated than any garden in the country," he says. The garden foundation president admires the hundreds of kale recently planted by the dedicated three-man staff in beds along the winding walkways, intermingled with tulips, digitalis, daffodils and other spring plants. He holds a larkspur and points to the "little rabbit" on each bloom. He squeezes a snapdragon to show how the flower got its name. In 2016, Jasmine Hill didn't suffer the drought that plagued amateur gardens statewide. Fitzpatrick built an elaborate reservoir system that still collects and sends water throughout the gardens on a downward spiraling path that is pumped back up when it reaches the lowest level of the property. On the average 90-minute guided tour, Inscoe notes that the mock orange shrub is similar to the crown of thorns. There are Aldridge hydrangea from the sister garden in Birmingham. There are so many varieties of camellias they have not all been cataloged. And there are hundreds of trees, from oaks to cypress to dogwoods, including a long corridor of pines that mimic the "whistling sound" the Fitzpatricks heard during more than 20 trips to Europe to buy statues for the gardens. Jasmine Hill is home to the world's only full-scale reproduction of the Temple of Hera ruins in Olympia, Greece, which has been the garden's calling card for generations of visitors. "This is what people usually remember more than Various flowers bloom year-round. 'Winged Victory' is among more than 40 statues in gardens.

• Cover