Arboretum Adventure - One of Many

    So, one of my favorite things that J and I have acquired this year, is our Descanso Garden Membership Cards.

looks like this!

    In the basic sense, it's a year-long membership to the Descanso Gardens, which are just a stone's throw from our apartment and very pretty as well. But, what it really means, is that we have membership to the Descanso Gardens PLUS free admission to about a hundred other gardens around the US. We now have free access to the San Francisco Botanical Garden and the Conservatory of Flowers (which I will be dragging J to at some future time. We also have access to a bunch of local gardens, including the Los Angeles Arboretum. http://www.arboretum.org/

    So, what shall we do this weekend? Movies are expensive, as are theme parks and most museums, etc.. but the gardens are now FREE. So, this weekend we decided to finish our exploration of the Arboretum. We had visited for the first time about a month ago, but since the park is pretty large and full of interesting things to explore, there was a whole side we hadn't seen yet. Of course, you don't have to walk too far before you walk into the path of some of the Arboretums permanent residents: the peacocks.

    One of these days, I'm going to grab my camera and just spend the whole day photographing these guys. They are very odd birds, and not at all skittish around people. The photos above were taken without zoom, so I was able to get very close.. so close that J was sure that one of them was bound to peck at me.
    Un-pecked and on a mission, we strolled off towards the unexplored portion of the park. We came across a lake surrounded by trees trellising numerous grape vines.

    We sat for a spell in a flower garden, watching butterflies flit to and from, and bumblebees collecting their share of nectar.

    We sat and watched a waterfall, enjoying the sounds as well as the cool air surrounding the pool.

    We climbed above the falls and found a small water garden as well as a field of small plumeria trees. J, knowing how much I love their flowers, stole the camera to take a picture of me.

And he wouldn't give it back...

    Our path back to the gates took us through a rose garden, surrounded by fragrant citrus trees of every variety. The gardens close before the sun goes down, so with the shadows growing, we knew it was about time to leave. But we will definitely be returning again soon, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the garden change and grow next spring.