Observation and Summary of My Visit to The Desert Botanical Garden and Trip to The Renaissance Festival

A while back, I went to the Desert Botanical Garden to check it out. At first I thought it was an actual garden, with flowers and roses and such. I was excited and was disappointed when we went and there wasn’t any flowers. I should’ve gotten a clue, since the name was DESERT botanical garden, but that went over my head. But upon arriving the place, it was actually pretty nice. We went on a day that wasn’t too hot, and the monarch butterflies were still alive. We had a limited amount of time to be there, so we decided to just check out the butterfly garden. We walked around trying to find the place, but we actually got lost after walking around an area for almost ten minutes. We didn’t realize that the botanical garden was so huge, and it kind of shocked us that a place can hold so much desert plants in just one place. We went during the time they were introducing art desert objects, so we also looked around too. Finally, we reached the butterfly room, and it was actually really pretty. I’ve never seen so many butterflies in my entire life. Although we only explored halfway through the garden, I think I liked it. The plants there looked much prettier when it’s crowded together rather than disperse like it is in neighborhoods.

From my experience, I didn’t really learn much, except how long cacti lived or how they lived. I also learn about the butterflies, but I think I already knew them from before and how they hatched and grow. I wanted to see a cacoon but because it wasn’t in season I wasn’t able to. Although I didn’t get much from my first experience, I think I appreciated the beauty of a desert more. Living in Arizona, and seeing cactuses so often makes me unappreciative the wildlife around me. But on my defence, I think when it’s more close together, like it was in the garden, it is more disperse. Driving around in Arizona, I see plants being wide spread apart. I really like how they actually tried incorporate a natural setting, but I can still feel like the garden is too controlled. A man had to walk around in order spray water at the plants; it was a real desert then, the plants should’ve been able to survive with what the sun had given them.

The Renaissance Festival

Over spring break was the first time I went to the Renaissance Festival. I’ve heard great things about it and I had always wanted to go and check it out myself since I’m in love with old things. I’ve always said that if I had to live in the past, I would choose the Renaissance era. Going there was really fun; it wasn’t as expensive as people told me it would be, but that’s probably because I didn’t have to pay for my own food. Their turkey leg was HUGE. I really liked their their shows, but unfortunately I had to leave early because I had a schedule. But, I got to ride a camel and that was pretty cool. I wanted to ride the elephant as well, but I felt camels were more exotic.

In my opinion, the Renaissance festival is just a fun festival to go to during the Spring and everyone should go at least once in their life, however, I think the Renaissance festival wastes a lot of energy. First off, almost everyone buys a turkey leg; it is a must. Meaning, a lot of turkey have died, just for their legs. The festival ran for a whole month, I’m guessing that there’s probably around 300 visitors on average, meaning about 50 turkeys die every day, just for their legs.

There’s also the part about the entertainment. While the entertainment was suppose to be technology free, they still had to use mics and amplifiers for us to hear them, meaning they had to use a lot of electricity throughout the whole day. For a whole month, the electricity is running. While I approve the Renaissance festival for being here annually, it’s actually doing a lot of harm to the environment, which got me thinking. The Renaissance festival didn’t even use that much energy compared to other fairs and festivals, such as the State fair or smaller ones like the ostrich festivals. This means, that whenever there is a festival or fair, a lot of energy and money is used just to provide entertainment for the people.