In this day and age where city budget cuts are happening like crazy, we all need to get out and support our local parks department! Lots of their programs help fund their budget and they are incredibly fun, informative and reasonably priced.
Gary and I with our friend Lisa recently went on a dusk hike at the Rio Salado Habitat. It was amazing that you could look to the west and see the sun setting and to the east to see the full moon rising. Of course, I forgot to bring my camera! But the weather was fabulous about 68 degrees and it was great to be outside for 3 hours. We just had a bunch of rain so the river had just receded and washed out a lot of the vegetation. Lisa sent me before photos (above) when she was there in December--so lovely and below is how the habitat looked at the end of January--all washed out.
In the washed out state, you could see the debris that flooded in from all the storm drains. So important not to pollute--it winds up in the river bed! The rangers said that the habitat will revert back to the December pre-flood state in a couple of months. Amazing.
Here's the added bonus on the night--we learned about cooking in dutch ovens and made three dishes before we left on the hike.
One of park rangers stayed and oversaw the dutch ovens. When we returned from the hike, we got to eat the yummy food! Three hours of fun, education and food for $9.00. Such a deal!
