Mojave National Preserve

After our trip to San Diego we headed east - to the Mojave desert!  Many of you already know how much Kevin loves the desert.  I like it too, but I was a little nervous about being there with our dogs in August.  Thank God for air conditioning!  The dogs had their noses so close to the vents in the RV that they had nasal and throat irritation for almost a week afterward.  At least we were able to keep them cool.

As we got into the park, the sky became more ominous.  A brief storm passed through.  As you can see, the temperature outside was 116 F late in the afternoon.  This was the last place we expected to see rain this time of year.

When the storm clouds passed into the evening, a beautiful sunset graced the sky.  The temperature dropped into the low 90's with a great breeze, but for me, it was still a pretty hot night.

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Between 6-9am, the temperatures were very pleasant.  You could see the tracks of all the creatures walking around in the middle of the night.  Our RV is in the picture above to the left.  This was where we spent our first night in Mojave.

Kevin had the dogs off leash early in the morning.  They loved running around in the soft sand!

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Yucca

Joshua Tree (a type of yucca, not an actual tree!)

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Although no stranger to the desert cliffs, we certainly were surprised to see this bighorn sheep so close to the road.  Apparently, they are very hard to spot because they usually are found at higher elevations on rough terrain far away from people.  Had this sheep not been at the top of the rocks, we would never have seen him against the dark background.  This made our day!

The first sheep had a friend close by!  How lucky for us to see two at the same time!

Bighorn Sheep Video Clip

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Here are some shots of the desert landscape.

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On the second night in Mojave, we stayed at an actual campsite around 5000 feet up.  During the day it was much cooler at 86 degrees.  I even had my jacket on from the nice cool breeze!  Kevin cooked dinner on the grill and we had a great night relaxing.  The dogs got to play a little outside.

We thought these were watermelons growing in the wild.  After a little research, we found out they are desert gourds and are very prevalent in this area.  They will climb anything!

As we drove away from our campsite back to the hot desert floor, we passed cattle and an actual ranch along the way.  I don't know how they stand the heat!



Heading home!

Balboa Park - San Diego

  

Balboa Park is a huge landscape full of gardens, museums, art, restaurants and more.  The zoo borders the north end of the park.  We explored the park with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Frank for the entire day until it was time to pick up the dogs at daycare.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, perfect for being outdoors!

Our first stop was the Air and Space Museum.  This was a pleasant surprise.  Kevin and Aunt Dorothy are particularly interested in WWII, which was well represented with video footage, photos and artifacts.  An unexpected attraction at the museum was the 4D movie experience.  I wasn't sure what that meant.  The movie itself was 3D and we had the special glasses.  What made it 4D was the fact that the seats moved and even sprayed water at times.  It was really cool.

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After the museum we had lunch at Prado.  The architecture of the surrounding buildings was gorgeous.  Then, we walked through some of the courtyards between the museums and gardens.  The "indoor" botanical garden was really lush.  Just outside the building was a reflection pool full of different colored lily pad flowers.  It was a beautiful park. 



Botanical Garden



  

The next stop was the Spanish Village Art Center, where local artists showcased their work.  We found a beautiful handmade glass vase to remind us of this day in the park.  Any excuse to shop!

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We finished up the afternoon at the rose and cactus gardens, which were next to each other.  It was fun to see the different varieties of flowers and plants.  Aunt Dorothy and Kevin continued to discuss WWII while Uncle Frank and I snapped as many pix as we could.  In fact, this picture is of Uncle Frank taking a picture of his favorite tree in the park.  We just loved soaking it all in!

After we picked up the dogs, we headed to Coronado to round out our trip.  We could see the lights from Mexico as the sun dropped out of sight.  San Diego is a great place and I'm glad we got to share it with our family. 

Dog Days



Cabot (center), Ingonish (back right)



While Kevin and I were in San Diego for three days, we took the dogs to doggy daycare.  This allowed us to spend the day in the hot sun without worrying about them.  To our surprise, the facility posted pictures of them on Facebook.  It looks like they had a ball!



Ingonish in flight in the middle



Cabot loves the water and apparently, the other dogs loved him in the water too!

This was a great experience because they were exhausted once we picked them up.  I don't think they had much time to rest!

San Diego Zoo

On August 16th, Kevin and I met up with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Frank to explore the San Diego Zoo.  This was something I wanted to make sure and see before leaving California. and it didn't disappoint!  The grounds and exhibits were beautiful and the company was great. 



Photo from the Skyride



We decided to take a short bus tour around the grounds because the zoo is so big.  This helped decide where we wanted to go and allowed us to see some animals from a unique vantage point overhead.  One of my immediate observations was that this didn't seem like a typical zoo.  The landscaping was so lush and beautiful and many of the animal exhibits were tucked away.  It was very serene.  Sometimes you forgot you were in a zoo!



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I always enjoy seeing the bears at the zoo because they are so beautiful and so dangerous to actually see in the wild.  It gives you a close-up view you could never have otherwise.  My absolute favorite is the polar bear.  I don't know how they recreated the arctic in San Diego, but the bears were very playful and seemed happy to be there!

Polar Bear Clip

I am also very fascinated with the grizzly bears.  As much as I would love to see these bears in the wild (not!), I know this is my only chance to see them up close and escape with my life.  Don't you just love those nails?!

They had quite a group of koala bears.  Many of them were very shy with their backs to us.  This one was too hungry to care!

The funniest thing had to be this sloth bear.  He was either crazy or dancing to an iPod we couldn't see!

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The hippo wasn't scaring this duck one bit.





Cool shot of the flamingo taking a drink.



Every zoo has elephants, but this exhibit was beautiful.  There were many of these "utilitrees" that provided the elephants with challenging ways to get their food.  It helped with their creativity and to keep their minds sharp.  There was a huge open building dedicated to bathing the elephants.  It was incredible and very impressive! 

Once our sightseeing was done, we headed to Albert's, a restaurant right in the zoo!  It was nice and relaxing and a nice end to a great day!