We visit the local zoo called "The Living Desert"

Our hosts took us to the local zoo called The Living Desert in Palm Desert, California.
At the entrance,we stopped to find a letterbox. Letterboxing is a hobby of theirs. You register at this site http://www.atlasquest.com/ and find clues to boxes hidden all over the world. Inside box you find a stamp and a book. You put your own "signature" stamp in that book and you stamp your book with the stamp you found. It was fun! Inside the zoo, we found lots of native desert animals like this King Snake and Burrowing Owl.
We found maps and information about what makes a desert. It isn't always hot in the desert, it's mostly dry!
We also checked out the "Discovery Center" for kids. We had our picture taken with a coyote picture and a real skeleton of a rattlesnake.
There was a very nice mural of the desert valley.
And an working example of natural cooling. Hot air moving across wet pads is very refreshing when it's 110F outside! Don't worry, it was only 70F degrees today.
On the way back home, we stopped for ice cream at McDonald's!