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| - The Desert Botanical Garden (DSB) has been educating, researching and exhibiting desert plants for the world to see for 75-years. It's a great place to come and learn about, and view, Desert plants as they thrive in a natural environment/setting. The place is huge -at around 140-acres- and can get extremely busy during certain times of the year, or for special events. The park itself is really beautiful, well organized and is a great place to bring the old and the young. I was fortunate enough to get to view two special exhibitions during my visit: "Chihuly in the Garden" and the Spring Butterfly Exhibit.
Chihuly in the Garden- Dale Chihuly is a world-renowned glass artist that produces the most visually wonderful pieces of glass art you can imagine. They're showcased throughout the DSB and you will come across them sporadically as you mosey along. They're also marked out on the map provided by the DSB, but I preferred to just come across them randomly; I felt it was more fun that way. I have seen Mr. Chihuly's work before at San Francisco's De Young Museum, but it was a great pleasure seeing his work again. According to my sister they're quite a sight to see when they're all lite up at night.
Spring Butterfly Exhibit- You get to walk through a netted off area where there are hundreds of fluttering butterflies floating around you. You can watch them feed, fly and just rest--and if you hold still enough they just might grace you with their presence by landing on you. Just be sure to treat them gingerly and don't try and pick them up. This area was great fun, especially for my 3-year-old.
There's still time to go see both of these exhibitions as the Butterflies run until May 11th, 2014 and the Chihuly Exhibit runs until May 18th, 2014. I highly recommend seeing both if you can, but if not the DSB is still a pretty great place to come and see if you're in Phoenix and looking for something cool to do.
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