More about Tucson.
Tuesday, we did go to the Arizona Desert Museum, and stopped by the wet side of the Saguaro National Park.
The desert museum was cool - I had been told to go there by two friends, and because I am quiet and obedient, I did. Or even if not. And, it had lots of plants and info about them. We wandered around somewhat clueless until we finally found a docent - who answered our questions and then said, I’m leading a tour in 30 minutes if you want more info. So we went on his tour. He was great. We learned how to smell creosote bushes, and about different kinds of cacti which all look like saguaro but aren’t, and we saw javalina and cougar and a coupla owls - the elf owl is TINY and can hide behind a branch! The only roadrunner I saw on our trip was at this museum/zoo, but Bob saw TWO in the wild, which is not fair! :( . They had a raptor flight in which trainers let hawks go and they swooped over us, and across us, up very close. Bob has pictures, I may get some.
Then we went to the national park, and did a short walk. short because the museum tired us out. But on that short walk, we went to Signal Hill, which had petroglyphs. They were definitely cool. And that night, we had ice cream sundaes, but you don’t care about that.
Wednesday, we went to the other side of the national park, and took a real hike. We went towards Douglas Springs. I think we have something about Douglases. Douglas Creek, Douglas Falls, Douglas Springs.
The first interesting thing about the walk was how close we were to the cactus. The trail was narrow, and there were these huge cactus all around us. Also small ones. Saguaro are maybe 30 feet tall. Cholla are 1--3 feet tall (and cute). Prickly Pear are from 1-5 feet tall. The mesquite trees are overhead - maybe 20 feet tall. Creosote about 5 feet. And other trees and bushes I don’t know. But we were right among them.
They call it a forest, and that could only be true of the trees were bigger, for me. But there were certainly lots of kinds of plants. The ground was not covered, one could easily mistake the path for one of the empty gravelly bits, but there were plenty of things growing. I didn’t expect to find so many plants.
We hiked up for a while. Bob saw a roadrunner (because he is greedy). We saw lots and lots of birds, but we don’t really know what they were (except the woodpecker at the end, I think it was a flicker, and some quail). They only sat for pictures when they were too far away for the photo to be any good. The mountains sat for pictures, but - those pictures are hard to interpret.
But it was lovely. Full of wonderful views, and lots of plants, a few flowers, many many birds, squirrels and Bob’s roadrunner.
Tucson in December
I am always depressed and cold and crabby and tired of rain by the end of Fall Quarter, so, being proactive, we got tickets to a sunny and warm place for the week following the end of Fall quarter.
This fall in Portland was warm and sunny, up until December 1. Figures.
And, we’ve come to Tucson, which started raining the day after we got here. Rain, and snow, and sleet. Our first activity was sleeted out. (A trip to Kitt Peak Observatory).
We had a lovely drive up to Kitt Peak, though, and Bob took lots of great pictures. I took a few crummy ones, we’ll see what you get.
Today, we went to Kartchner Caverns, which was also very cool. Inside the caves, about 70 degrees, so that was warm enough. But outside about 30 degrees, and so maybe “cool”. There were amazing cave formations, many on a food theme. Soda Straws are stalactites that are long and thin, and hollow in the middle. Guess what they look like? Fried Eggs are formations with one large crystal, darker, in the middle of the flat top of a stalagmite, surrounded by liquidy lighter-colored multiplicity of crystals. Guess what they look like? And there is a kind of “drapery” formation in three colors, which forms in sheets on the top of a cavern, which they call “bacon”. Also, there is a kind of soda straw which forms a bulb around it’s base (which means, the part attached to the ceiling), and then it tapers and gets thinner. They call those turnip straws (like soda straws only different). Guess what they look like? But, in general, it was fantastic. There were colors of red, blueish, yellowish, milky white, and yellowy off-white. Some of them were absolutely fantastic.
We followed that up by a trip to the Mission San Xavier del Bac, which was wonderful. It had all the elaborate ornamentation you’d expect in a cathedral, but rather than being tile, it was painted. There were statues, and carvings, and paintings, painted ceilings as well as walls and archways, it was just great. There was a courtyard that was paved with stones and ringed by arches - probably like a promenade ground. And there was a tiny garden/courtyard near a place they put candles for memorials - I forget what Catholics call their candles. The special room for the candles was a separate building, and it had hundreds of candles. THat was the only room I had been warm in ALL DAY, our hotel room not excepted. Candles do work to heat up a place - you get enough of them and the btus add up.
Tomorrow, we’re going to the Saguaro national park, and to an outdoor museum. Let you know more about it all soon.
