Nature Kids Discovery Zone

We recently discovered a new park in our small town. It has the rather unimaginative name of Nature Kids Discovery Zone. It is located adjacent to the Alicia Sanchez International School. Getting there requires navigating a maze of residential streets. 

Some time in early July the wild flowers in the park just exploded and I knew we needed to visit it with our cameras. 

I love thistles, so I gravitated toward this one immediately.  

 Next to it were these tiny flowers that grow in clusters. What immediately grabbed my attention is the lady bug traversing the stem. 

Broken Things

 

Community Art to Celebrate our Little Town

At the end of our street is a small park. Four of the trees in that park died a number of years ago. They stood as grey sentinels for a number of years. Recently we noticed that they had been reduced to tall stumps. At the time we thought it strange that the stumps were so large. Then one day we saw someone carving one of those stumps with a chain saw. Within a week, the stump had be transformed into a rooster running a race in sneakers.  

Talking to the artist we learned that he would construct four sculptures out of the dead tree trunks, each representing something iconic about our town. We have a fun run every winter. The rooster was created to celebrate that. 

 

The goat was to celebrate the many public concerts held in our little community. 

 

The pig sits on top of a box of peaches. He's to celebrate our annual peach festival and the many restaurants along the town's traditional main street.  You may remember him from a previous post from May.

 The last is the Canada Goose, dressed as a painter. It's to celebrate the strong community arts programs in our little town.

 

Petrified Forest Butte

 The Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert National Parks are separated from one another by interstate 40, near the town of Holbrook Arizona.  Painted Desert is on the North side of the interstate and Petrified Forest is on the south side. Despite the parks being geographically side by side they present vastly different landscapes.  The Petrified Forest has many photogenic buttes such as this one.   

Happy 245 birthday USA

 

Flags decorating the entrance of Miramar National Cemeter, San Diego.