Walnut Creek

Welcome to the abbreviated 2019 sightseeing season! The 2019 season was a short one. It was mostly intended to consist of places I didn’t have time to get to in the 2018 season. It did turn out to be 1 day longer than I had originally planned. And it got a very early start. January, to be specific.

My friend Lyle had seen my post about how much I had enjoyed my visit to the Randall Museum in San Francisco. He thought I might enjoy visiting the Lindsay Wildlife Museum (now known as the Lindsay Wildlife Experience), located deep in the East Bay in Walnut Creek. Well he was right about that. But I decided I wanted to make a day of it in Walnut Creek. So I did my thing and researched what else I could do in Walnut Creek. As a result, I bring you Day 1 of the 2019 sightseeing season.

The Ruth Bancroft Garden

The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a historic garden specializing in succulents and other plants that live in dry environments. Visiting the garden was a great way to start off the sightseeing for the day and the 2019 season.

*Catrina* is a planter based on a Day of the Dead themed drawing by Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada.

The Australian bottle tree looks like it has a big butt!

Montezuma pine (I think). It’s rare for a Montezuma pine to grow in Northern California.

These cacti (possibly *Cleistocactus*) look snowy. Appropriate in January, I guess.

This attractive cactus is another *Cleistocactus*, I think.

Ashby’s banksia, a shrub from Western Australia.

Contra Costa Canal Trail

The Contra Costa Canal is a 48-mile aqueduct built in the 1930s and ’40s to bring fresh water for irrigation to many Contra Costa County communities. A 14-mile paved trail was built along a section of the canal in the cities of central Contra Costa County for recreational purposes.

Conveniently, I could follow a portion of the trail for most of the 2 1/2-mile walk from the Ruth Bancroft Garden to the Lindsay Wildlife Experience. It wasn’t quite as scenic a walk as I was expecting. But it was a nice walk nonetheless.

A duck swims in the canal’s not quite pristine waters.

Lindsay Wildlife Experience

At the end of my pleasant walk, I met my friend Lyle for the main attraction of the day, the Lindsay Wildlife Experience.

Lord Richard, the Lindsay’s resident turkey vulture, was hatched at the Randall Museum in 1974. He was 44 at the time of my visit, the oldest turkey vulture in California!

The Lindsay Wildlife Experience is a museum and also the oldest wildlife hospital in the United States. The facility treats over 5,000 wild animals a year. Animals that can not be safely released into the wild are made permanent residents.