At 7 a.m. in Tucson, it's already hot. Unbelievable! There is no cold water in our hotel. Just hot, and then warm (from what most people would consider the cold-water tap). Oh well, it's not like we planned to sit in a motel room and drink tap water anyway.
After a quick bite of breakfast, we drive out to Saguaro National Park. What's a saguaro? Think of the typical cactus that you'd see on a Warner Bros cartoon - one of those tall cactuses with arms - that's a saguaro. They're apparently very finicky about the climate and land where they grow, but there's a large concentration of them around Tucson.
I kind of love the saguaros - they're almost comical, they way they look like large stick people. Although I'm sure that some would argue that anything that takes 250 years to grow that tall cannot be described as comical, it must be stately and dignified. But still... Look, that one is waving his arms. Hahaha!
Saguaro National Park is split into two halves - one on the east side of the city, and the other on the west side. We start with the east one, as it's closer to where we're staying, and we'll be working out way west as we go through the day.
When we pull into visitor center, a girl walking by warns us not to use the restrooms, because there's a big rattlesnake beside the wall there. We immediately perk up. Really? Thanks for telling us. And then we quickly go over to take a look (because we're dumb, and we've never seen a rattlesnake). Yup, there it is.
I take a photo, but the rattlesnake is not as exciting as I expect it to be. I tell Stephen to go pose beside it. It bites his head! Aargh!, he screams. Thinking quickly, I use his belt as a tourniquet and wrap it around his neck, but then his face turns red and then blue and his whole head balloons up like a big discoloured balloon--
Uh oh. This scenario will likely end up with me in jail, or at least answering awkward questions. Let's have a do-over.
~Rewinding...~
I take a photo, and the rattlesnake slides off the sidewalk and goes into the shrubbery. Everyone lives happily ever after.
When a staff member finally arrives for work (slackers!), Stephen goes to warn him that there are rattlesnakes in them thar hills! The park worker is unimpressed. (It's like someone coming up to us, and saying, "There's a gopher outside!") While chatting with him about our plans for the day, he suggested that we go to the Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum first, then come back to visit Saguaro afterward; the animals at the zoo are more active early in the day, before it gets too hot.
The Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum is about five minutes away, so we backtracked. It's a large complex, mostly outdoors. One of the park guides mentions that there's free sunscreen inside in case we need it. I've already applied it, and we're both wearing hats and long pants. I mention the epidemic of people hiking in flip-flops, and the park guide rolls her eyes. She's suggested that park management should rent out proper shoes to people, because they'd make a fortune. She told us about people going off the marked paths, hiking through cactus patches wearing flip-flops, and coming back crying because - guess what? - they've got cactus needles in their feet and legs.
The museum is mostly outside, although there are shady patches here and there. We did see quite a few animals: mountain lion, Mexican coyotes, lizards and birds, and some interior exhibits with creepy crawlies. We meet another wild snake on a path, but stand back to let it go by.
Inside their auditorium, we went in to see the "Animals Running Wild" show. A cute little parrot says "Hi" when we walk in the room. "Hi! Hello!" And, of course, we laugh and keep saying Hello! right back at it. For the show, a ranger gave a speech about animals and their habitat, and then some of the animals would come running across the stage. Happy times! :-)
After that, we'd pretty much worked our way through the park, so we returned to Saguaro and drove the scenic loop. It was too freaking hot to hike any distance, but we did stop to take a few pictures.
Next on the list was to pay a visit to the mission church of San Xavier del Bac. It's a beautiful white plaster church built around 1790. Fortunately for art lovers everywhere, the church has brought in an Italian team of experts in restoring paintings; they're busy removing the layers of grime that have accumulated over the last 100 years from candle smoke, dust, etc. Unfortunately, for us, it meant that the most spectacular pieces of art in the church were hidden behind scaffolding. Doh!
Are we done yet? No, now we're going to the Pima Air & Space Museum. You know what sucks about air museums? They need gigantic hangars, and even then, they don't have enough room, so most of the planes are outside in the baking, baking heat of day. So hot. Need water. I'm melting - melting! Oh, what a world, what a world--!!!
My favourite part of the Air & Space Museum was the space hangar. Because it was indoors, it had air conditioning, and it's nice and dark and cold in space. In space, no one will hear you scream, "It's so hot!" (Hey, that sounds like the tagline for a movie. A movie about someone dying of heatstroke in Tucson...)
Our last stop on this very busy day was to head to Saguaro National Park West, on the other side of town from where we'd started. This appear to be the original park, with a larger visitor center, fully paved roads and far more hiking trails. The road is very hilly, and there's maybe a little more variety in the type of cactuses here. Because it's the end of the day, we just do the scenic drive.
Now it's time to gas up and leave Tucson (because we've now seen everything there is in Tucson). However, lately, every time we stop at a gas station, I'm unable to use my credit card to pay at the pump. You insert the card, and then it asks for a zip code. When that happens, I always scream, "What if you don't have a *&#*$^ing zip code, you *#$&*#?!?!?!" It always makes me feel better to show off my Canadian affinity for casual swearing. Anyway, it's very annoying. It seemed that our cards worked in Utah, but Arizona has been insisting on zip codes. Wankas.
We were optimistically heading for Las Cruces, but there wasn't that much daylight left. The sun sets early around here - driving into the east, the sky is pink and purple twilight, with a bright desert orange sunset in the rearview mirror. Beautiful. I'd have taken a picture for you if I hadn't been driving on the Interstate. :-)
By the time we've reached New Mexico, we were driving in darkness. So, the scenery was very... um... dark. It looks like nothing I've ever seen before (because I can't see it. Duh). There are many warning signs about dust storms, so I presume we're in some open area.
We keep going until Deming, where we decide to call it a night at a Best Western.
I kind of love the saguaros - they're almost comical, they way they look like large stick people. Although I'm sure that some would argue that anything that takes 250 years to grow that tall cannot be described as comical, it must be stately and dignified. But still... Look, that one is waving his arms. Hahaha!
Saguaro National Park is split into two halves - one on the east side of the city, and the other on the west side. We start with the east one, as it's closer to where we're staying, and we'll be working out way west as we go through the day.
When we pull into visitor center, a girl walking by warns us not to use the restrooms, because there's a big rattlesnake beside the wall there. We immediately perk up. Really? Thanks for telling us. And then we quickly go over to take a look (because we're dumb, and we've never seen a rattlesnake). Yup, there it is.
I take a photo, but the rattlesnake is not as exciting as I expect it to be. I tell Stephen to go pose beside it. It bites his head! Aargh!, he screams. Thinking quickly, I use his belt as a tourniquet and wrap it around his neck, but then his face turns red and then blue and his whole head balloons up like a big discoloured balloon--
Uh oh. This scenario will likely end up with me in jail, or at least answering awkward questions. Let's have a do-over.
~Rewinding...~
I take a photo, and the rattlesnake slides off the sidewalk and goes into the shrubbery. Everyone lives happily ever after.
When a staff member finally arrives for work (slackers!), Stephen goes to warn him that there are rattlesnakes in them thar hills! The park worker is unimpressed. (It's like someone coming up to us, and saying, "There's a gopher outside!") While chatting with him about our plans for the day, he suggested that we go to the Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum first, then come back to visit Saguaro afterward; the animals at the zoo are more active early in the day, before it gets too hot.
The Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum is about five minutes away, so we backtracked. It's a large complex, mostly outdoors. One of the park guides mentions that there's free sunscreen inside in case we need it. I've already applied it, and we're both wearing hats and long pants. I mention the epidemic of people hiking in flip-flops, and the park guide rolls her eyes. She's suggested that park management should rent out proper shoes to people, because they'd make a fortune. She told us about people going off the marked paths, hiking through cactus patches wearing flip-flops, and coming back crying because - guess what? - they've got cactus needles in their feet and legs.
The museum is mostly outside, although there are shady patches here and there. We did see quite a few animals: mountain lion, Mexican coyotes, lizards and birds, and some interior exhibits with creepy crawlies. We meet another wild snake on a path, but stand back to let it go by.
Inside their auditorium, we went in to see the "Animals Running Wild" show. A cute little parrot says "Hi" when we walk in the room. "Hi! Hello!" And, of course, we laugh and keep saying Hello! right back at it. For the show, a ranger gave a speech about animals and their habitat, and then some of the animals would come running across the stage. Happy times! :-)
After that, we'd pretty much worked our way through the park, so we returned to Saguaro and drove the scenic loop. It was too freaking hot to hike any distance, but we did stop to take a few pictures.
Are we done yet? No, now we're going to the Pima Air & Space Museum. You know what sucks about air museums? They need gigantic hangars, and even then, they don't have enough room, so most of the planes are outside in the baking, baking heat of day. So hot. Need water. I'm melting - melting! Oh, what a world, what a world--!!!
My favourite part of the Air & Space Museum was the space hangar. Because it was indoors, it had air conditioning, and it's nice and dark and cold in space. In space, no one will hear you scream, "It's so hot!" (Hey, that sounds like the tagline for a movie. A movie about someone dying of heatstroke in Tucson...)
Our last stop on this very busy day was to head to Saguaro National Park West, on the other side of town from where we'd started. This appear to be the original park, with a larger visitor center, fully paved roads and far more hiking trails. The road is very hilly, and there's maybe a little more variety in the type of cactuses here. Because it's the end of the day, we just do the scenic drive.
Now it's time to gas up and leave Tucson (because we've now seen everything there is in Tucson). However, lately, every time we stop at a gas station, I'm unable to use my credit card to pay at the pump. You insert the card, and then it asks for a zip code. When that happens, I always scream, "What if you don't have a *&#*$^ing zip code, you *#$&*#?!?!?!" It always makes me feel better to show off my Canadian affinity for casual swearing. Anyway, it's very annoying. It seemed that our cards worked in Utah, but Arizona has been insisting on zip codes. Wankas.
We were optimistically heading for Las Cruces, but there wasn't that much daylight left. The sun sets early around here - driving into the east, the sky is pink and purple twilight, with a bright desert orange sunset in the rearview mirror. Beautiful. I'd have taken a picture for you if I hadn't been driving on the Interstate. :-)
By the time we've reached New Mexico, we were driving in darkness. So, the scenery was very... um... dark. It looks like nothing I've ever seen before (because I can't see it. Duh). There are many warning signs about dust storms, so I presume we're in some open area.
We keep going until Deming, where we decide to call it a night at a Best Western.
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