When I sit and gaze out at a pond and see the reflections on the still water it causes me to empty out my head of random thoughts. I am drawn into the reflections as if they were an alternate world to this one. I can’t not help but wonder if in that other world, someone is gazing back at me.
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Reflections of a Pond
We came upon this little guy at The Los Angeles Arboretum outside Glendale, California. I am not a duck expert but I never saw one before that had this blue stripe badge on its side. I thought it unusual and hope one of my followers can educate me on what type of duck this is.
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Duck
The Tucson Botanical Garden has an excellent butterfly room featuring butterflies and moths from all around the world. In addition to the live Butterfly Garden they also have exhibits of chrysalis and preserved insects. The garden is not large but the Butterfly Exhibit is worth the price alone.
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Butterflies in the Desert
Butterflies in the Desert
Butterflies in the Desert
These two large cactus seem to act as a goal post for the other cactus. The setting sun provides an interesting back lighting making what was beautiful seem somewhat sinister and spooky.
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Goal Post Cactus
Palm Springs is surrounded by the San Jacinto Mountains on the western side of the city and leading up to the mountains are the world famous Indian Canyons.. There are a variety of hiking trails and while many are strenuous, less serious hikers can also find suitable trails. Palm Canyon is the most popular but we hiked the Murray Canyon Trail.
We couldn’t make it back to the waterfall because of the violent storms that preceded our hike. It was a beautiful day and the palm trees in the desert made me think of the desert oasis I was reading about in the novel,The Alchemist .
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Indian Canyons California
The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona and California and of Northwestern Mexico including parts of Baja California. Inside the desert there are a number of National Parks including Saguaro National Park which is near Tucson Arizona. Of course one of the reasons for the parks name is dozens of small forests of Saguaro cactus.
There are miles of trails and hikes available for all levels and the winter weather in the low 70’s with crystal clear skies was perfect.
Saguaro National Park
The estate originally built by Walter Annenberg in 1966 was used as a winter residence by the ambassador and his wife. Sunnylands Center has since been used by many famous people and where President Obama recently escaped for a few days after finishing his term.
The gardens are stunning and free to the public. Tickets can be purchased to tour The Residence when it is not in use.
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Sunnylands Center and Gardens
I remember first hearing about Palm Springs on the Edwin R. Murrow Television show Person to Person. That show was my first exposure to Murrow. I don’t know which star he was interviewing, maybe it was William Holden, but we were riveted to our ten inch black and white TV like we were every Sunday. I was amazed that they were sitting at a pool in swimwear but it was the winter in Cleveland (freezing,cold,tons of snow) and they were sitting at a pool and looking at the snow on the surrounding mountains.
What a magical place I thought.
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I learned years ago, and the hard way to not get too close to these beauties. There are a number of Cholla cactus all seemingly have needles on springs. If you get to close the needles seem to to wind up on you even if you don’t touch the plant. These opuntia type cactus is primarily found in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
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Jumping Cholla
This will be my last post now on the Art Commune at East Jesus California. In reviewing the images I found that I really liked this one and left it out of the original post. Maybe it is just my way of paying the Artists of East Jesus a thanks and adieu!
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Adeu East Jesus