7) Saguaro National Park June 25 – June 29, 2009

On June 25 we left for Tucson minus our truck and trailer. Remember the transmission was out on the truck, and we were trying to have it fixed. Without the truck we couldn’t pull the trailer so we put it in storage and rented a car to continue our journey. Since Saguaro doesn’t have a campground this was not a big deal. We found the local Hampton Inn, and all was great. Saguaro is divided into the east and west districts with the city in between them. We visited Saguaro East first. After going to the visitor center, talking to a ranger to get oriented, and watching a film about the saguaro and Sonora Desert, we drove the 8-mile Cactus Forest Loop Drive and hiked the Desert Ecology Trail. The dirt road drive gives a good glimpse of the plants - the saguaro cactus is the most prominent - and animals that call the Sonora Desert home. Saguaro cacti are like the sentinels of the desert towering over the other desert plants that grow much closer to the ground. They stand so tall and erect, and each one has its own personality depending on how the branches grow. There was the dancer, the orator, the comedian, the director and the list could go on and on. You are limited only by your own imagination as you look at these elegant, magnificent plants, some of which are over 200 years old. Another interesting plant was the Palo Verde tree, characterized by its lime green bark. One has to look closely to differentiate its branches from its slim leaves. The green bark performs much of the plant’s photosynthesis, because a lot of large leaves are a real detriment in the desert. The Ecology Trail was a paved, 0.3 mile trail that identified most of the plants of the desert. It was too hot for much hiking even though we were there in the late afternoon. To cool off we had dinner at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse-another restaurant we could recommend.

Do You Need a Hug?

The next day we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a combination botanical garden, zoo of rehabilitated wildlife, provider of educational programs and desert research facility. It is a must see if you happen to be in this area. We went to two programs, Live and (sort of) on the Loose and Running Wild. Live and on the Loose was about venomous reptiles of the desert and, our program spotlighted the Gila monster and one of the rattlesnakes. It was fun not only learning about the habits of these critters but also watching the handlers control them with the use of their long handled snake hooks. The Running Wild program focused on small animals of the desert and featured a skunk, porcupine, gopher snake, and macaw that flew out over the audience; quite impressive. The four legged animals had been trained to walk along a tabletop on the stage as a slide show ran, and the handler talked about the animal’s diet, habits, etc. We took the docent-led tour of the desert and learned about the history of the area, the plants that grow there, the animals that live there, and issues related to the desert and maintaining its viability. Our guide was very knowledgeable, humorous, and interesting. What we didn’t cover during that tour, we were able to go see on a self-guided basis. Once again, because of the heat, we sped through the rest of the exhibits and headed for the café to have lunch and rehydrate. The museum is really a treasure and one you could spend a couple of days visiting- there is so much to see. We left after lunch and headed for Saguaro West.

Skunk, Star of Running Wild Program, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Big Horn Sheep at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Good Camouflauge

Panorama of the Sonora Desert from Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

We stopped at the Visitor Center to talk with a ranger and see another orientation film. This film was very good, and there is a real surprise included, which we won’t spoil here. There was also a special presentation about the bats of the abandoned mines within the park, so we stayed for that. The main issue was how to secure the caves so that people could not enter them but so that the bats would be free to come and go. They are experimenting with different gate configurations to see which one has the least effect on the bats.
After enjoying the museum, we drove the Scenic Bajada Loop Drive, another unpaved road 5 miles long through the desert. It closely resembles the drive on the east side of the park, but the west side has many more cacti, and the drive is shorter. While on the drive we hiked the half mile Signal Hill Trail. It went up the side of a hill to an area of petroglyphs. It felt very good to get back into our air conditioned car. We then drove through part of the Tucson County Park that adjoins the national park, and which has a few examples of the crested saguaro, which you can find if you ask a knowledgeable ranger. We continued our drive by heading over to the Old Tucson Studios, but it had closed for the day. I think that was no big loss, though. It looked pretty touristy.

Petroglyphs, Signal Hill Trail

Saguaro Cactus, Saguaro National Park West

The next day, we went out to discover the secrets of Biosphere 2. It’s “2”, because the other biosphere is earth, and it comes first. This is an amazing structure that we had heard of years ago, in which, a small group of people set out to live for a period of time completely shut off, physically, from the rest of the world. This isolation includes a seamless, stainless-steel shell that surrounds the section of the biosphere that is below ground. The idea was for the biosphere with the people in it to be self-sustaining. Their experiment was a bit shorter than the original plan, because they couldn’t maintain the caloric intake needed over a really sustained period. They made it for 2 years, which is not bad. The system is currently used for research by universities and others interested in utilizing the largest, enclosed, fully controlled environment in the world. The system includes multiple environments: desert; rainforest; ocean, with coral reef; tropical savanna; and mangrove wetlands. There is also a human habitat area where the original crew each had a separate apartment that they could furnish to their own taste. The guided tour also includes a lot of the technical areas of the biosphere, including two massive “lungs”, which kept the biosphere from imploding or exploding when it was hermetically sealed. It is a truly remarkable structure.

Biosphere II

Tombstone, AZ was next on our list. We strolled around town for a while and visited the old Courthouse which has been turned a state historic park. The exhibits focus on the history of Tombstone and Cochise County. We saw the OK Corral but did not stay for the reenactment of the famous gunfight. Tombstone was a tad on the touristy side, so we decided to move on. We did stop at Boothill Cemetery on our way out of town. Three of the victims of the famous gunfight have Boothill as their final resting place.

OK Corral, Tombstone, AZ

On our way to Silver City to check on the truck, we stopped at the City of Rocks State Park in the Mimbres Valley. Out in the middle of the flat dessert is a collection of rocks left as a result of volcanic action 34.9 million years ago. They were big, and their shapes and distribution really remind one of a city. But most of all they seemed so out of place. To make a long story short regarding the truck, the repair did not go well, so we headed to Las Cruces to buy a new truck. That was much more successful than the truck repair phase of the trip.

Rock Foramations, City of Rocks State Park, NM