Spring Break Adventures 2014 - part III - Living Desert Zoo and Garden

The morning after the caves, I convinced everyone that we really should stop by this "Living Desert Zoo and Garden" on our way out of Carlsbad.  I found a random flyer for it in the hotel lobby.  I was not prepared for how amazing this place would be!  If you ever go down to Carlsbad for the caves, be sure to stop at this place too.  It is so well worth it, and we got in for half off because we had a zoo membership too.

Basically, it's a tour of all of the plants and wild life of the Chihuahuan Desert near the Mexican Border.  The plants are just incredible.  One thing I have really come to love about living in the desert is the plants.  I had no idea how beautiful desert plants could be.  The prickly pear cacti are blooming right now and they are just amazing.  People say that it's "so brown here", and "don't you miss the trees and the green of the East coast?"  No, no I do not.  It is a few shades more brown here, but the desert is beautiful and I miss the trees about 1 hour per year.  Wait.  I don't even miss them that much.  I love my SINGLE tree in my front yard!

I digress.  Back to the beauty of the desert.  Check out this botany!

This is one of my favorite plants.  The Ocotillo.  There is one growing at the entrance to our neighborhood, but it doesn't get this big and nice.  I think the ABQ is probably not quite the right climate for it.  Probably grows best in southern NM.  It's this crazy ugly stick thing and you have no idea why anyone would plant something like that.  Then, in the spring, the stalks get all these little leaves on them and big bright orange flowers at the end.  There is beauty in everything.   Mother Nature is so rad!

 I also love the prickly pear.  You can see the flower buds on these.  We were too early for them to bloom last month, but I bet they are gorgeous right now.  

The yucca palm.  These have grown on me. I used to hate them, but now I think they are pretty cool.  They get these super tall flower blossoms on them in the spring.  Their flowers can sometimes be as tall as the whole plant and stick way up out of the top.  They are way weird, but way awesome.

There were miles and miles of open desert, just full of prickly pear and ocotillo.  

Those last few pics were of plants they kept in a greenhouse from deserts all over the world.  I love that fuzzy cactus thing.  

The local animals in the park were equally fun.  Harriet fell in love with this little burrowing owl.  We didn't get a picture of him, but he was way cute.  We saw tons of birds, reptiles, etc.  They supposedly had bears and big cats too, but they were all tucked away in their dens.  Then, we all found out what it's like to have a rattlesnake raise it's rattles at you.  Luckily, he was behind glass, but if we even approached his house, he got super mad at us.  Yikes.  I really really don't like snakes.  

The kids are always excited and satisfied to see a wolf.  

We really did pack in a lot into a less-than-48 hour trip.  On our way home from Carlsbad, we made a 2  hour stop in Roswell.  After seeing Roswell, trust me.  It's not worth more than a 2 hour stop.  I would NEVER  head down there JUST for Roswell.  I can't believe people book hotel rooms there and use it as a destination.  There is truly, nothing there - a main street with a few fast food places and some goofy gift shops, a museum about the "true" history of Roswell (much much better than the alternative,) and the hokiest, lamest excuse for a "museum and research center" based on the crazy alien crash story.  I loved reading all the accounts of people having their lives threatened by the federal government if they revealed any information.  Yep, they were, I'm sure, because the stuff they found was probably top secret government experimentation - not little green guys in a flying saucer.  Roswell has sure capitalized on the alien thing though.  Every single store and restaurant has an alien statue in front or an alien painted on it.  Aliens might as well land there, because the locals are pretty convinced that they did and there's a full welcoming committee!

Like I said, the legit Roswell museum was worth seeing.  Harriet found an incredible Georgia O'Keeffe painting that she loved because she just did a report on her.  And, we all loved the history of the rocket science that was developed in Roswell.

Could this BE any cheesier?   And it was kind of expensive to get in this place too!  (David was dying.  He wanted to bypass the whole thing, but after driving through Roswell on the way down, the girls fully expected an alien experience on their way home and made him do it.  He really thought he was going to get away with driving home after the real museum.   Rookie mistake.)  Truthfully, I fully believe that there are many life forms and plenty of other races of humans out there in the universe.  I fully believe in "aliens."  But, I don't for one second, believe that they are these little green guys and that they landed in NM a few decades ago.  do de do do, do de do do

Anyone feel like watching an episode of X-files?  

Ahh... good times in NM.