Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Palm Springs

On Tuesday morning, we got up early for a bike ride back north to Marina Del Rey.


We passed by these big ficus trees.



Again, the beach was fairly quiet this morning and the temps were in the 60s making it a nice morning bike ride.


After our bike ride, we drove over to Larry and Laura's because they were taking us to Palm Springs today.  It may have been cloudy and cool in El Segundo, but it was warm, bright and sunny on our way to Palm Springs.


We passed by the biggest wind farm we have ever seen.


The windmills were everywhere.


Palm Springs has these big palm trees lining the streets...



...and a big statue of Marilyn Monroe that is on loan but they are trying to keep (according to the lady at the visitor center).



After a delicious lunch at Los Casuelos, we decided to go to "The Living Desert" which is a combination zoo and botanical garden. 

The Living Desert is an interesting exhibit and display of desert life in North America and in Africa.  Cactuses (or cacti??) were everywhere and were beautiful in their own prickly way.









The surroundings and landscape were beautiful too.



Several of the animals were snoozing in the warm afternoon...






...but when Laura and I walked back through to hopefully see the cougar, the badger and the wolf had woke up from their naps.



We saw a lot of "natural" wildlife (not in a cage or on exhibit) like this bunny rabbit and


some hummingbirds.



Laura saw this rattlesnake that was crossing in front of us (not in a cage). Yikes!


It curled up under a bench and it was rattling and making this hissing sound that we didn't know they would do.  We were just glad a small child didn't come running through there because they could have easily been bit.



We flagged a person down who worked for the park.  She came over and kept an eye on it...

 
...until another girl came with a hook and a covered container to put the rattlesnake in. 


Did you hear him rattling in the container? The girls said they find the snakes occasionally and when they do, they catch them and then release them on the nature trail outside the park.  Don't think we will be hiking that nature trail!

As we continued walking through The Living Desert, we saw this cute coati,


this big mountain goat,






some Cuvier's gazelles,



some zebras,




and some slender-horned gazelles.  There are less than 200 slender-horned gazelles left in the world).



By now, the park was closing but we had seen most of the animals.  On the drive back to El Segundo, we talked and visited some more and saw a beautiful sunset.



Thank you Larry and Laura for a wonderful visit to El Segundo and Palm Springs!  We enjoyed it very much!!

No comments:

Post a Comment