An oasis in the middle of the city

Today we visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The Visit Phoenix website claims it is "the world's finest collection of arid plants from deserts of the world", with "over 50,000 plants".  I can't vouch for that, but I will say that it took us a few hours to cover most of the trails, and we really enjoyed it. There were some great displays explaining not only the plants, but also the animal and bird life of the area. There were also interesting exhibits detailing the way plants and animals survive in the desert.

We stopped for lunch at the cafe. As you might guess by the photos below, Greg shared his lunch with some of the residents.

Harris's antelope squirrel

My phone's battery was low, which is perhaps good as I was limited to only a few photos. Here are some things that caught my attention.

An octopus cactus - yep, I can see how it gets its name!

An owl eye cactus, which did look more like an owl in real life than it perhaps does in the photo.

A sundial that was donated in memory of someone. As you'll see by the size of the person in the top right corner, it was quite large and very beautiful. I'll leave you to figure out what time it was when we passed by.

This flower was all alone, with none others like it around. I just thought it was beautiful.

It was so perfect it almost didn't look real to me ... but it was. I wish you all a day with sunshine as bright as this flower, just like we had today!