After shopping in Palm Springs, we had one additional free day. We bounced around a lot of ideas (a lot of them had to do with more shopping) but finally settled on spending the day at The Living Desert, or as my dad kept calling it: The Living Dead. Once I got over my disappointment that there wasn’t actually a Zombie exhibit in Palm Springs, I got online and looked at the Zoo and Gardens and thought it would be a nice second choice.
Our first stop was the reptiles and invertebrates. Jerry, one of my dads, is terrified of snakes, so he didn’t go in. He will also scroll past all the following pictures, just so he doesn’t accidently catch a glimpse of one.
My sister loves butterflies and was very excited about the Butterfly Exhibit. Although, we looked everywhere, we couldn’t find one, I’m guessing because of the winter. Jerry was trying to round everyone up for a photo so I don’t think he was particularly happy when I suddenly turned and walked away, but I had caught a flash of one out of the corner of my eye and I was determined to stalk it while I got my sister’s attention. It finally settled in a mesh area and I was able to get a really nice photo.
There are several different bird exhibits, including the biggest vultures I’ve ever seen.
But my favorite exhibits were those with our furry friends:
The Living Desert is set up so that you get to walk through all the many different gardens as you go from one animal exhibit to the next. I really enjoyed this design as it allowed you to meander at your own pace and not really get caught in any big crowds. Here are a couple other design highlights:
- There are plenty of bathrooms spaced throughout
- Lots of cool statues
- Shuttle with 11 stops that runs every 15 minutes
- Hospital and Conservation Center that you can visit and view animal exams
- Wild Lights-holiday lights and entertainment. We didn’t go, but it seems similar to Winter Garden aGlow, but in a zoo setting
They also have a petting zoo, which Katie enjoyed.
Jerry did manage to take a handful of family photos when I wasn’t running off to chase butterflies.
I have to admit that I’m not usually a huge fan of zoos. I don’t like seeing animals in cages and I’ve been to enough zoos where animals don’t have enough space to roam, to make me very hesitant about going to any zoo. With that said, I have been to a handful of zoos that provide decent space for the animals to live and focus on conservation efforts. While there were a couple areas where I thought the animals could use more space at the Living Desert, I think overall it is a zoo that I’m comfortable with and did enjoy my experience there.
*For more pictures, especially of the Gardens follow me on Instagram.
Have you been to The Living Desert? What other zoos have you visited and enjoyed?
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