Tucson Day 2

Dad says this was his favorite part of the trip!

If you like creepy crawlies, you should have been with us today. We woke up early because we had a lot of driving to do to get to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. While Mom was cooking up the pancakes, Dax and Seth went out to flip rocks in the backyard. They found a massive scorpion! We didn't get too close, but he was easily the biggest any of us had ever seen. It was only the first in a series of desert dwellers.

The scorpion was huge. It's hard to tell in this picture!

It was almost three hours out to the monument, which borders right against Mexico. We kept our eyes open for animals, and we did spot a few cool birds. There was a phainopepla, which looked exactly like a black cardinal. We saw cactus wrens and gila woodpeckers. We even spotted a crested caracara, which is a really cool looking falcon. We didn't see any of the large mammals we were looking for, though.

We saw so many interesting cacti--like this octopus.

We saw this beautiful Montezuma quail on the side of the road.

Mom really wanted to see a Caracara, and we found one!

When we reached the monument, we started at the Visitor Center. It was small, but the boys had completed the Junior Ranger in advance. There were thousands of cactuses all around. Most were saguaros, but we found plenty of organ pipes, barrel cactuses, cholla, and others. They looked so strange standing there in various poses, and we laughed as we tried to decide what each one was doing. 

Seeing all the different cacti was so fun.

Randy really loved the organ pipe cacti.

We did a couple of cool hikes in the monument. The first was to an arch, and it was about halfway out the trail that we saw a tarantula. He was the size of Seth's hand, and since it is tarantula mating season, he was quite pretty. A little further down the trail, we spotted something that made our skin crawl. It was a 10 inch long centipede that looked more like a snake than a bug. We actually saw two of them, and we all decided they were much worse than the scorpion or that tarantula. The boys were ready to be back in the car!

We stopped a few times along the drive to take photos.

It really was a cactus forest.

The arch was a fun sight among the desert dwellers.

It was way warmer in Arizona than Utah.

This was the tarantula we saw.

The desert centipede that grossed everyone out.

We also spotted this lizard that was shedding his skin.

Mark snapped a few photos.

This type of cactus grabs on to you and breaks off from itself. Watch out Dad!

This was our favorite thing to do on this trip--try to look like the cactus.

It was nice to be out hiking again.

This cactus was HUGE!

Seth found some new sunglasses.

It was only five miles from the Visitor Center down to the border, so we drove down to take a look. It was the second time Natalie and the boys had seen into Mexico, but they still haven't crossed over. Since the border opened just yesterday, we weren't prepared, and probably wouldn't have crossed over anyway. 

The drive back seemed much longer than the drive down, and we wondered why we'd gone all the way out there. But we got back and found a pretty good Mexican restaurant, so we all went to bed happy.

We did spot a Harris hawk on the way back to town.