On my first full day in Palm Desert I wasn’t able to check
into my timeshare until 4:00 in the afternoon. I decided to go to what is
described several places online as one of the leading attractions in the Palm
Springs area – The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. I should mention that I was immediately
impressed with Palm Desert from the moment I first gazed down upon it from high
in the Santa Rosa mountains on my descent into town. Located in what is some of
the most barren desert in North America, most of the Coachella Valley is an
oasis of palm trees, lush vegetation, and emerald green golf courses. This is
one of those places much of California’s limited water supply evaporates. As
elsewhere in California the hillside neighborhoods appear especially lush and
affluent, but many of the towns on the valley floor like Rancho Mirage, Indian
Wells, Bermuda Dunes, and La Quinta as well as Palm Desert are rich, lush green
places, quite a contrast to drier Lake Havasu City where I was a few days
earlier.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect of Living Desert or if
at $25 for admission I’d find it worthwhile.
It is described in some places as
one of the top ten zoos in the U.S., but I hadn’t heard about before starting
to plan this trip. I ended up being extremely impressed. Located in Palm Desert at the edge of town
where the lush manicured vegetation hits the rocky brown desert hills, the
place sprawls over a huge area. The zoo
and gardens are essentially divided into two halves – North America and Africa –
although a third Australian section is in the works. True to the institution’s
name, the animals and plants displayed are all desert dwellers on the two
continents and the variety is impressive.
Possibly even more than the animals, I was impressed with
the variety of the gardens. If you
travel through the Desert Southwest or other deserts around the world, you see
that the flora varies significantly. At
Living Desert they’ve recreated the plant life of all the deserts in North
America from Great Basin to Chihuahuan to Baja Vizcaino. Same is true in the African section. Living Desert turned out to fill up most of
my day….and then I was able to check in at Marriott’s Shadow Ridge Villages.
2025-02-10