The Living Desert

Yesterday, our little family headed out to the Palm Springs area to visit The Living Desert. We figured it was warm, sunny, and not too far a trip for a last minute outing. We had fun.

Avery immediately made her entrance. Everyone knew she was there as she waved and yelled "Hi" to all the other visitors. She grabbed the map immediately to find where the giraffes were located. Fortunately, we found them fairly quickly. Whew.


On our way to the giraffes, we saw several things... an enormous model train exhibit, meerkats, zebras, a cheetah, and ostriches. Avery seemed to enjoy the meerkats most because they came right up to the side of the cage and put on a little show.

I didn't take many pictures of the model train exhibit, because they just wouldn't do it justice. This was about a fourth of the exhibit... it was huge!



Then we got to the giraffes -- Avery loved them. There are several animals she can pick out of books, and giraffes are certainly one of them.


Next we moved on to the butterfly exhibit. There were probably a hundred butterflies alive and flying around -- with several hundred more set to hatch within days. It was very cool... I'd never seen a live butterfly exhibit before. They had a sign displayed with the types of butterflies included, and I actually saw a couple I'd never seen before. They are tough to capture on camera, however.




Before moving on, we sat for a while and just watched the butterflies all around us. It was a cool experience.


We also had to snap a picture of Avery with the body of a monarch :)


We moved on from that exhibit, and saw some other desert animals -- an eagle, bobcats, and a badger.


Avery had a great time being her crazy self, and fell fast asleep in the car on the way home.


We'll be back to the Living Desert, but not until next winter! It was hot there yesterday, and it's only February still!