Botanical Gardens

Monsoon rains have been so great!! I think recently my favorite part has been the night rains because it smells so good out without causing the chaos on the roads when I'm trying to go to work (even a single puddle of water on the road could fluster an AZ driver)! The last few weeks of grey skies and lower temperatures actually give me hope that we can start going outside more again soon but then it's followed by a day like yesterday with 115 degree temperatures and full sunshine and then I remember you can never go outside here, but we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best to come!

One of the many places on my list to do before we move is the Desert Botanical Gardens. My cousin's roommate works there and talks so highly of it that I just had to take advantage of the free admission day they do once a month. It was my first time ever going and I was happily surprised by how big it was, of course I had to look at EVERYTHING. Some of my favorite things to see were the wildflowers, any and all of the animals, the butterfly garden, and the desert oasis. I also really like to see the dark green plants because it's so wild to know some of them are thriving here!

The bunnies and birds were extremely afraid of us but the squirrels seemed to be slightly less scared. The ground squirrel we could actually get a picture of came running so close toward us that I instinctually took a step back lol! (Side note: Wow is it hard to take pictures of animals!? Definitely need to work on that one more!) A bit later while Frank and I were walking through the last trail we ran into a father daughter duo who asked us to take their picture for them. We did and of course asked them to do the same for us in return. Well after they took a picture on our camera for us (unfortunately didn't turn out well) they offered to take one with theirs too which could print polaroids! I was thrilled and now we have that memory saved on a polaroid which actually did turn out pretty cool.

It was so so much fun and the temperatures weren't too bad because of the rains but I definitely want to go back for longer in the winter to see more. Happy to say I'm checking things off my list though and lots more to come!

xoxo
Andrea Aloren