10/3/07 Our Visit to the Living Desert

We had the perfect day to visit The Living Desert State Park. It wasn't nearly as hot as our high of 102 degrees yesterday. Yes, you read that right, 102, but ya gotta love this dry heat. If we stood in the sun, we felt the heat but it felt much cooler in the shade.

So today we start seeing the local attractions and the first stop for us was the....

Carlsbad sits at the edge of the Great Plains of middle America - to the east stretch hundreds of miles of flat prairie, used mainly for ranching and oil drilling. With a relatively low elevation of 3,400 feet, and summer temperatures that often exceed 100 degrees, this part of New Mexico is still classified as desert, part of the Chihuahuan Desert which also extends across southeast Arizona, west Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The plants and animals of this region are exhibited in the Living Desert State Park which occupies several acres of cactus and yucca-strewn land on the edge of the Ocotillo Hills, overlooking the Pecos river valley just northwest of town.

We had to stop just before we entered the park itself because there was an overlook where you could look over Carlsbad below.

Just to the right of the overlook we noticed this little hacienda. We would love to sit on our back porch have the view this home has!

Just four doors down was this home that just seems so out of place with the rest of the homes in "Fountain Hills".

We made our way into the park and into the main building. The first thing we noticed was the lady behind the desk putting what looked like finger paintings done by a three year old into frames. She explained to us that the paintings were done by Maggie. Maggie is indeed a three year old, a three year old BEAR. Maggie "paints" once a week. Since bears see colors she even chooses what colors she wants to use from the palette she is given. Here is Bob holding one of Maggie's paintings.The paintings are framed and sold rather reasonably. The one above sells for $15.00. In some of the pictures you can see a definite paw print. Nothing of Maggie's paintings go to waste as the edges of the paintings which are trimmed away are then laminated and sold as book marks for $3.00. I did buy one of those.

We started our one mile and a third trek around the park. The first section we went through was the....

Now I'm sure this area is beautiful when the plants are in bloom but if the truth be told on this day it was looking kind of bland as far as color is concerned.

We did manage to catch this little sample of wildlife.

In this area was also an Aviary where we caught a glimpse of this roadrunner. They don't look anything like what Wiley Coyote was always chasing and I didn't hear a "beep beep" once.

Here is a strange looking owl.

The next section to tour was the...

This picture is of gypsum in its natural form. You may be more familiar with gypsum in its finished state....drywall.

Other views from this area.

Next stop was the....

This area is another example of it probably being beautiful if the plants were in bloom. This was not the case when we visited. In fact, we didn't even take any pictures in this area worth sharing. Its included just to show what is in The Living Desert.

On to the.....

Now, neither Bob or I knew what to expect when we saw this sign as neither one of knew the meaning of the word. It means....a small steep-sided watercourse or gulch with a nearly flat floor: usually dry except after heavy rains and found mainly in the Southwest.

In this section we found javelinas, a distant cousin of the pig.

While walking through this area we came across this tree that had fallen. There's nothing special about it we just thought it was interesting. The next section to tour was the....

The most interesting thing in this section was the view.

We were especially thankful for these little shelter areas just to get out of the hot sun for a few minutes.

Right around the corner was the....

This exhibit was very dark inside the building, hence the name. It housed snakes, tarantulas and lizards. Made my skin crawl and I couldn't wait to get out of there. As we exited the building we found ourselves in a zoolike setting.

Here is where we found Maggie the painting bear.

A prairie dog pen.

A beautiful mountain lion.

There were also some Bobcats and I called "Here kitty, kitty" but they wouldn't come close enough for a good picture. There was also a pool for the turtles but they weren't swimming and I couldn't see taking the time to post a picture of a pool although I took one.

Next stop for was the Greenhouse. As if it wasn't hot enough (mid 90's) we just had to go through a greenhouse too. It was HOT but oh so worth it.

Here's what we saw.

....and my favorite one of all.

So there it is, our day in the Living Desert.