Indio: The Living Desert

And back to our regularly scheduled post. . .

After having one slightly lazy day, we headed out to the Living Desert Zoo on Ethan's 17 month birthday. This was the highlight of the trip for me, and possibly for him too.

We were a little later getting started than we had hoped to be, so when we got there we made a mad dash to make it to the giraffe feeding. And then we waited until they were ready. Oh well, such is life. :)

It was worth waiting for in my opinion. It was really quick, but so cool! And Ethan knew right what to do. Somehow it was different seeing the giraffe up close just through a fence instead of being up on a platform like in other zoos.

And of course we saw a lot of other animals. The Africa section was really cool, but we also were in awe of the wolf from the American section.

They had a little petting zoo in the African village, and Ethan got to brush some of the goats. I think some of our family members didn't think we were so crazy to want goats after they saw how nice they were. :)

I haven't mentioned yet that it was HOT. We picked this day because it was supposed to be a little cooler than the other days, but I wouldn't exactly call 109 degrees cool. So that was kind of a drawback, and it was difficult for Terral's parents and Heather, but the rest of us did okay. Ethan is such a trooper, but you can really tell in this picture that he was just tired and hungry and hot. He perked up after we wet his head and gave him a snack though. My little sprout. ;)

He especially liked it when we ditched our stroller and rented on of the zoo's jeep carts. Vroom! We liked it too because it was more spacious and easier to drive when we came to the gravel paths.

And it was just fun to drive. :)

We listened to a demonstration at the animal hospital, and then we got to touch a milk snake, which is a harmless imitator of the coral snake. I don't remember the rhyme they told us there, but I remember one from a show I watched as a kid: "Red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow; red touches black, you're okay jack."

There was also some pretty crazy vegetation at the zoo! I can't remember what this was called. . .

After being out in the heat so long, it was sure nice to find a little grassy shade hut that had misters you could actually feel. This picture makes me smile so big inside!

I don't think that the carts were technically designed to hold adults, but we figured it was okay if Heather rode it since she's carrying a baby. :)

We pretty much thought we were done, but then we came upon a kids' play area and we couldn't pass it up in spite of the heat. This cactus was a slide.

All along the way, Terral took pictures with the statues. He kept trying to make the faces the animals were. I love this goofy guy!

The rest of us had some fun with the statues too.

Before we left, we decided to check out the discovery center. I didn't get very many decent pictures in here, but there were a lot of cool activities.

Here's grandma at the wind machine. It told you how fast you can blow. :)

Ethan up with in the mountain lion territory. It made a fun little slide.

Then it was finally time to make our way back to the condo. We stopped on the way at a Mexican place for a really late lunch.

Ethan was so, so tuckered out. Poor little man. We really messed with his schedule on this trip. Not too long after we'd finally established a good one.

Hot peppers!

When Ethan woke up, he was pretty hungry, but then he really wanted to go see the fish in the aquarium they had. The blowfish was my favorite.

It was a very hot and tiring day, but it was very fun!