Day 15, Sunday March 15th: Tucson

Sunday we got up early to get to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum early enough in the morning to avoid the heat.  It is just under an hour away and we arrived around 09:00 and it was a very nice temperature. 

Gates Pass

To get to the Desert Museum you pass over Gates Pass which offers stunning views of the surrounding desert. 

The Museum has live displays of most of the native desert plants, reptiles, spiders, insects, mammals, birds, etc.

Desert Museum

The museum is expansive (about 100 acres) and we enjoyed wandering the different sections, each area having different types of animals and plants.  

Black Throated Magpie

The Black Throated Magpie seemed to pose for us. 

We especially enjoyed the live Raptor demonstration, where they had a Great Horned Owl and a Crested Caracara perform. They normally have additional smaller raptors perform but they currently have some native Harris Hawks that have been disrupting the raptor demonstration when the small birds fly, so they aren't flying them right now. 

The birds are trained to fly very close over head, which is quite impressive. 

Great Horned Owl

The Great Horned Owl seemed to be the best trained, flying very close to the crowd. 

Crested Caracara.

The Crested Caracara was a bit more stubborn but did eventually come down and land for pictures.  

Mexican Flag Eagle

I thought it was interesting that the narrator for the show commented that maybe the Mexicans were thinking of the Crested Caracara when they depicted an Eagle on the Mexican flag, because there are no Eagles in Mexico....

But I asked the internet if there were Eagles in Mexico and it says there are Golden Eagles in Northern Mexico....Hmmm

The cave section is very well done, it is man made but it sure seemed like some of the caves and caverns we have toured, with tight passages that the kids would love. 

We returned home for a light lunch. June did laundry, I took the Serenity and fueled up. I never thought I would think that $4.70.gal for diesel is a good price...but it is. 

We left for dinner around 5:45 and Nessa got to come with us as the Saguaro Corners is pet friendly. Unfortunately there was another large dog there who barked and growled at Nessa quite a bit. Other customers complimented Nessa on being well behaved when they walked by. Dinner was delicious.

Monday, Brian and Jane have to go back to work, poor buggers, and we will set out for Joshua Tree National Park.  We considered driving to Red Rock Canyon in Nevada, but it takes use quite a distance off our path to the California coast, so we will just have to do that another time. 

Brian and Jane have been great hosts and we hope we can return the favor sometime.