Spring in California

I've been meaning to check out Descanso Gardens for a while now and finally managed to get my act together. It's only about 15 minutes away from my place. In typical "Melanie" fashion... I manage to pick the busiest day of the year to check out the gardens. I get there and the queue is halfway to the overflow parking lot. Or course... not having done any research I had no idea what was going on. Eventually found out that weekend was the Cherry Blossom Festival. I'm not really patient so the wait was a drag but on the other hand all the cherry trees were in bloom so that was cool. The gardens are beautiful and it's a good walk with lots of hills. The gardens were originally part of a wealthy publisher's estate which was sold to Los Angeles County and from there developed into Descanso gardens that can be viewed by the public. So many of you know I LOVE flowers and I love taking pictures of flowers. So this post wouldn't be complete without lots of pictures.

So not JUST Flowers.... some fruit as well....

a teeny train....

and one determined turtle - he was bound and determined to climb that rock but kept sliding back into the water. Again... patience not my strong point so after about 10 minutes of watching him try I moved on.