Tucson Day 3

Look at the clouds! Gorgeous!

Today we visited Saguaro National Park, on the west side. This park is split in two, and the two sides surround the city of Tuscon. It was our fourth national park of the year, and the boys' twenty-fourth over all. As we started out, it was quite cool. We had a good time taking pictures and hiking along slowly through the massive forked cactuses. Since we'd learned all the types the day before, we weren't seeing a lot of new things, and the organ pipe cactus was missing since it can only be seen down south, but there were plenty of saguaros to keep us interested. The boys enjoyed taking pictures, and even though it feels like Saguaro National Park is right in town, the cactuses are so peaceful. In a way, it is sort of like a wax museum that you walk through and look at all the celebrities and their famous poses. Of course, we are always on the lookout for animals, too.

We were up bright and early.

Mom and Seth usually end up bringing up the rear.

These two are the best of friends (most of the time).

We loved seeing the variety of cacti on this trial.

Don't touch Mark! (or Don't touch, Mark!)

More cactus posing!

Mom and Dad loved Saguaro.

We saw a gila woodpecker on this trail.

After our first hike, we drove down toward the Visitor Center. We stopped for a short nature walk along the way. The trail was paved and easy walking after our other hikes, but despite our best efforts, we couldn't spot a pygmy elf owl nesting in any of the saguaros.

On our way to the Visitor Center, we spotted another tarantula. This one was crossing the road, so we watched to make sure she made it safely cross and then continued on our drive.

We turned in our Junior Ranger booklets at the Visitor Center and took a number to enter the gift shop. Covid protocols have been pretty tight in the national parks, so they only allow 8 people inside the federal buildings. Luckily, it wasn't too busy. We got the boys some patches for their books, and Mom bought a really cute shirt. 

Seth liked the double arm rests.

We found a witches' broom on this trail.

Our second tarantula.

We enjoyed hiking down among the cacti.

Seth posing as the cactus.

Our next hike was really beautiful because after meandering among the cactuses, it ended up at an overlook. You could see the entire valley covered with bright green cactuses standing erect like blades of grass. Mom also had us take pictures by each of the varieties of cactus that we've learned, from teddy bear cholla to barrel cactuses. The view was breathtaking. 

We all like to pretend we are touching the cactus, but no one really did!

Mom was grateful for the sunshine.

The view of all the saguaros was amazing.

The boys did so well on this trip.

It's hard to show in a picture just how many cactus are out there.

We had a picnic at a nice shady spot along the scenic drive. Since the park wasn't very busy, nor very hot, we decided to take another short hike, too. This one went to a large array of petroglyphs. Though the hike wasn't very long, it crested a hill with hundreds of petroglyphs etched into the rocks.

We love having picnics.

The view from the petroglyph location was very nice.

There is a an outdoor museum that is more like a zoo just outside the national park. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has all kinds of different animals, and the area is quite large. We really enjoyed the hummingbird display, but there were a lot of bigger animals to see, too. A few of our favorites were the ocelot, which can very rarely be sighted in the US, and the javelinas, which lay in their wallows during the heat of the day. The museum was really amazing, because it had dozens of other animals like a handicapped great blue heron, and some hot coyotes. We even saw beaver and otters in the small pools. Not surpringly, Seth declared this museum his favorite part of the trip.

There were tons of butterflies in this bush. 

The beaver came right over to see us.

We enjoyed seeing the animals up close.

Seth, the tortoise.

Mom's great photo of a cactus wren.

We liked seeing the bigger predators.

We tried to see javelinas out in the wild, but this was the best look we got.

We went into a cave section of the museum.

It was really fun and we liked exploring.

The Tuscon Temple is fairly new, and none of us had seen it. We needed some time to rest our legs, so we climbed into the car and drove down to see it. We were a little surprised by the dome that Angel Moroni was perched atop, but we were pleased that it looked different than any temple we'd ever seen. 

The temple is beautiful!

Mom really wanted pictures of the sunset, and though the kids grumbled a bit, we all piled back into the car and drove to a nice desert sunset spot. The boys had so much fun taking pictures, and the sunset was so beautiful! We took close to a hundred pictures, and all three boys said it was one of their favorite parts of the day. It was the perfect way to end a long, busy day!

The sunset ended up being beautiful.

We took 1,000 pictures.

The boys had fun taking their own photos and trying to capture the sunset.

We magically had someone take a photo of us!