44 New Things #12 - High Desert Museum

Yesterday, I made my first visit to Bend, OR. I spent most of the day at the High Desert Museum south of Bend.

The outdoor grounds of the museum had many cute ground squirrels and chipmonks. According to the museum signs, this is a ground squirrel - the local chipmonks have a stripe across their eyes. I was surprised at the number of ponderosa pines at the museum - when I thought of a desert museum in eastern Oregon I pictured sagebrush and more bushes than trees. This desert reminded me of the area around Spokane.

They were very entertaining - much better than most of the exhibit animals - there was a sleeping otter, a rather sad-looking porcupine, and a few frogs and snakes. There was an attractive lynx that I didn't get a picture of and they have a very nice birds of prey exhibit.

Overall, the natural history part of the museum didn't impress me very much, especially compared to the desert museum I am more familiar with - the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. I was much more interested in their history exhibits - the Robbins homestead reminded me of my great-grandparents first homestead in Washington (except theirs had a mother-in-law suite (lean-to) attached). They also had interesting exhibits on the history of the US Forest Service, the history of the plateau Indian tribes, one on trappers & immigrants, and one on maps of the Pacific Northwest after Lewis & Clark.

Scattered on the grounds are a number of artworks - this horse & foal made of barbed wire was my favorite. It reminded me of a few of Deborah Butterfield's works.

Overall, a very nice museum I enjoyed visiting.