Flutterbyes and Fighter Planes--in the Low Desert of SoCal

Visiting the Butterfly House at The Living Desert in Indio, California. Buckeye Butterfly

Janet photobombing a Tiger Heliconian butterfly.

Doris Heliconian.

Another phenomenal adventure! This time in the month of April to the Low Desert of California to see the Butterfly House at the Living Desert in Indio, and the Palm Springs Air Museum in Palm Springs. My friend from high school, Janet, went with me.

Janet and I are both retired teachers, and now have time  to develop butterfly gardens. Lots of good info here with the Winged Wonders.

Butterfly Pavilion, the Living Desert

The Butterfly Pavilion was like a lovely Victorian Conservatory, filled with all the flowers butterflies love as though they were the favored, special guests at a high tea. 

Grey Cracker and Hamadryas laodamia .

Here is a nice buffet of fruit--banana, oranges, and watermelon.

Grey cracker enjoying Tang in a sponge.v

Apparently butterflies also greatly enjoy orange flavored Tang. 

Gracias por saludos de cumpleaños, mariposa.

A lovely Malachite butterfly landed on my hat--it was my birthday and I accepted its best wishes.








This Julia Butterfly is enjoying milkweed, a plant loved by all pollinators, and essential for the endangered Monarch.

And here is a Monarch--not on milkweed, of course.

The Living Desert
http://www.livingdesert.org/

The Living Desert’s mission is desert conservation through preservation, education and appreciation.

The objectives of The Living Desert are:

• to preserve a portion of the Colorado Desert in its natural state;
• to foster, through interpretive exhibits, programs and publication, an awareness of, and an appreciation for, the variety of plants and animals in worldwide ecosystems;
• to build up under controlled conditions, populations of various species of desert animals and plants threatened with extinction in the wild state;
• and to foster through cooperative research and educational programs, biological studies contributing to the protection of desert species in a wild state.

The corsair, the mural and me.

Janet and I also visited the Palm Springs Air Museum. I've been before to see a static display of an F-4 Corsair from WWII because that's what my dad flew. It is still there, and the marvelous plane hangar wide and tall mural of a Corsair landing on an aircraft carrier.

Bomb bay.

Janet and I decided to join the docent on a guided tour of the inside of a B-17.  (BTW, my dad's first cousin, Blake Treece, was the radioman on a B17 during the D Day invasion. They went down over Caen, France.) The docent climbed the ladder up, Janet followed, and I realized we would have to crawl to get to the standing area. As mentioned, Janet and I are retired and both have what I would term 'grandma' knees--but that didn't stop us! I am very proud, we crawled through the small passage to a narrow, even tiny bridge through the bomb bay--between where the bombs would have been--then to the cramped area packed with communications equipment. It was really interesting. And then a ladder down and out.

B 17--you can see the lower ball turret on the bottom. Big guys need not apply.

The Air Museum was filled with students enjoying special programs, veterans, and planes, artifacts, and info on all wars from WWII to Korea to Vietnam and just opening a hangar with the Cold War. The docents are veterans. Sometimes there are flights and displays in the air, and you can book a ticket if you like.

Palm Springs Air Museum

http://palmspringsairmuseum.org/

The Palm Springs Air Museum is a living history museum dedicated to educating the public about the role Air Power played in preserving American liberties and way of life. The Museum preserves, exhibits, and flies aircraft from World War Two, Korea, and the Vietnam Wars. Most of the aircraft are in flyable condition.