Mom's California Visit, Part 2: Lindsay Wildlife Center and UC Davis

On Thursday, June 25 my mom, Trevor, and I said goodbye to Kari and Allison and headed to Lindsay Wildlife Experience. 

Despite living just 30 miles away for almost 50 years, Mom had never been there. This is particularly surprising given how much she loves animals and museums. I've been there 6 or 7 times and Trevor worked there last summer as an Animal Keeper intern, so this visit was all about showing Mom what a great place it is. 

    

We saw all the animals, of course. We attended a talk about chuckwallas, then watched the Wild California show, featuring a kestrel and a porcupine. 

They're doing construction on the Nature Cove, which was disappointing. That's one of my favorite spaces at Lindsay. The updated version opens in the fall. 

I wanted to add one more thing about Lindsay: I really appreciate the Social Narrative on their website. It provides a very detailed look about what to expect when visiting. I wish every place that is open to the public had something like this. I appreciate knowing where to park, for example. And more than once, we would have benefitted from detailed instructions on how to get into a building! 

After our visit to Lindsay, we made a quick stop at the house so Mom could meet our bunnies. Then we headed to the California Raptor Center, where Trevor gave us a tour. This was Mom's first visit and her first time seeing Trevor's Eagle Project in person. 

It was also her first time seeing Trevor holding a bird on the glove. That's Whistler, a dark morph Swainson's hawk. 

After a nice visit at the Raptor Center, we went to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine for a tour. It is an impressive facility, to say the least. The school is ranked #1 in the country and #2 in the world, training 720 professional and graduate students a year, and providing veterinary care to over 50,000 animals. They have made countless advancements in veterinary medicine since the school opened in September 1948. 

The grounds have a lot of beautiful animal-themed art. 

This is the Faithful Partners Memorial. It honors all of the canine officers across California killed in the line of duty. 

Our tour took us through classrooms, examination rooms, hospital facilities, and more. We learned about all the amazing things that happen in this spectacular place. It's impressive. 

I didn't get a photo, but I was interested to learn that the school maintains a Toxic Plant Garden. There, students can study the 60+ toxic plants that pets and livestock are most likely to encounter. Brilliant!

Of all the things we saw, the space that interested me the most was this room: 

Vet students have 24/7 access to this space to practice medical procedures they're learning on models of both large and small animals. 

There are stations set up for practicing intubation, transfusions, catheterization, and more. 

I didn't think it was possible for me to love UC Davis more than I already did, but this tour impressed me so much. There are incredible things going on at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine!

After the tour, we headed to Trevor's apartment so Mom could see it. We went out to dinner, then said goodbye to Trevor. Mom and I headed to Sacramento. We checked into The Exchange Sacramento, where we'd be spending the next three nights. It's a beautiful hotel, located in what was once the California Fruit Building, constructed in 1914. 

  

We had a full day ahead of us exploring Sacramento. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. 

Biodiversity Museum Day 2026

This was my third year attending Biodiversity Museum Day at UC Davis. This free event takes place each February and it is awesome! You can read about all the cool things we did in 2024 and 2025. This year, Steve and I started by strolling through campus and seeing all the plants in bloom. Then we went to Bee Haven for the first time ever, checked out the Village Homes exhibit at the Design Museum, toured the Moo-vin' Moo-seum, and saw our favorite Aggie answering audience questions about Whistler, the Swainson's Hawk, at the California Raptor Center. 

Biodiversity Museum Day (affiliate link)

We had such a good time at Biodiversity Museum Day. It's such a great event, with so much to see and do. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Picnic Day 2025

I always have a great time at Picnic Day, the annual open house at UC Davis. This year was extra fun, as our Scout friends Logan, Avery, and Bobby joined us. They'd never been before, so we were able to introduce them to maggot art, popcorn shelling, and all of our other favorite Picnic Day traditions. And Trevor showed us something that even Steve and I hadn't seen before -  the third-floor greenhouse in the Sciences Laboratory Building where he'd had for BioSci classes. It was a great day. 

Picnic Day 2025 (affiliate link)

For this challenge, we had to use one of four sketches for our layout design. This is the one I chose: 

As you can see, I increased the size of the photo block in order to include five pictures. There isn't a spot for journaling on the sketch, so I swapped out the flowers for circles that could hold my journaling. 

This is a very rare layotu of mine that has absolutely no white. I almost always mat photos with white and I frequently use white to house my journaling. I like this color combination and I'm happy with the completed page. 

Biodiversity Museum Day 2025

On Saturday, Steve and I attended Biodiversity Museum Day on the UC Davis campus. 

 

Biodiversity Museum Day is a free annual event that serves as an open house for the many biology-related museums and departments on campus. Trevor and I attended last year and had a great time. Steve had to miss it due to a Scout event, so he was eager to attend for the first time this year. 

We started our visit at the California Raptor Center, where we bought a CRC t-shirt.... for the person who sold it to us. 

We spent some time looking at all of the Ambassador birds. This is Kalli. She's one of my favorites at CRC. 

Several of the birds were out on the glove. I think this is Whistler. 

This is Sul Wita, CRC's first glove-trained bald eagle. Billy was casually feeding him while speaking to the crowd. 

Our next stop was the Robert Mondavi Institute. This facility houses a winery, a brewery, a food research plant, a milk processing lab, the UC Davis Olive Center, the Honey and Pollination Center, and a lot more. We started by learning all about microbes. They are much more adorable in stuffed form than in the microscope. 

This was absolutely fascinating. Have you ever heard of yeast art? Yeasts naturally have different colors, so you can "paint" tiny amounts onto an agar plate and then allow them to grow for a few days to reveal the pattern.  

Next, the brewery tour. It's an impressive facility. 

  

Then we toured the winery. It's also very impressive. 

Did you notice the open doors at the back of the winery? They lead out to the vineyards. 

We made a short stop to view the Nematode Collection...

.... and learn about sampling for the Herbarium at the Center for Plant Diversity. 

Then it was over to the Botanical Conservatory. It's most famous for the corpse flowers, but there are many other interesting and beautiful plants to see. 

  

  

Pitcher plants. 

I like the freedom of choice offered here.

Students were on hand to explain all about the various plants and their most interesting features. I was amazed by a demonstration of explosive seed dispersal. If you ever visit the Conservatory, ask for a demo. 

  

  

Bats and butterflies. 

After the Conservatory, Trevor joined us for lunch and then we headed to the Design Museum. I don't necessarily see a connection to biodiversity, but I thoroughly enjoyed their newest exhibit of Visual Journals. 

There was a cool hands-on area that looked really fun. 

Then we hustled over to the Museum of Fish and Wildlife Biology. It's housed in the same building as the Bohart Museum of Entomology. 

We only got a peek before the event ended and the museum closed. We'll make it a priority at Picnic Day or at the 2026 Biodiversity Museum Day. 

If you live near Davis, I highly recommend attending a future Biodiversity Museum Day or Picnic Day. Most of the museums have regular visiting hours, so visiting when there isn't a major event going on is also an option. I love how much there is to see and do at UC Davis.