12/20/10 – The Living Desert, Palm Springs

There’s really more to do in Palm Springs than just play golf—although if you ask George, he might disagree.  I’d heard about The Living Desert and wanted to check it out.  It’s part zoo and part botanical garden, focusing on desert animals and plants. 

There’s also a huge model train setup there, with all sorts of towns and bridges and whatever else they could build for the trains.  We wandered all around the display—which took quite a bit of time, as big as it is.  It’s one of those things where you look at a section, and then look again and see more details. 

The zoo part is split into southwest animals, and African animals.  I liked the section with the giraffes best—oh, yeah, and there were some Mexican wolves that were playing tag with each other, round and around their little island.  They had a petting zoo, so I made friends with a little goat--who then wanted to eat my jacket.

 I would have liked to have gone into the plant shop they had, but it was closed…  They did have some really good SW desert plant exhibits.  Good introduction to the cactus parks we’re going to visit later.   I actually liked the US section better than the world desert sections.

We had pretty much seen it all when the rain that was expected that afternoon started.  We high-tailed it out of there before we got dumped on. 

A few more pictures of The Living Desert

By the way, you'll notice that George is wearing shorts and I'm all bundled up in a jacket.  This is not at all unusual for our excursions.