Tucson Attractions March 20, 2013

We spent a day in Tucson: got taxes done (whew!), visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and finished the day driving through the Saguaro National Park West (there is also an "East" version). It was a busy day, but we crammed in a lot and really enjoyed our time in the area. If you like Saguaros, you will love Tucson, because the Saguaro Cactus thrives in this part of the country.

The Ocotillo Plant is a fascinating desert plant. During the cold, winter months the Ocotillo goes dormant and is a bush of barren, brown sticks jutting up from the ground. After a good rain, the plant sprouts small green leaves up and down its branches and sports bright red blossoms at the top. The photo above attempts to capture the red tops of the Ocotillo. You will see in an upcoming post, some better images of some other Ocotillos that we found along a gorgeous stretch of desert outside of Lake Havasu City, AZ. I took several photos of Ocotillos on this day because it was the first time we had seen so many of them in full bloom. The red blossoms really pop among so much green on the landscape around Tucson.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place! The exhibits re-create the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region and it is an interesting and beautiful place to walk through. This photo was taken along the road that leads you to the Museum. Note that the Museum and the Saguaro National Park West are across the street from one another, so the area is thick with the iconic cactus. Below is Oliver next to another Ocotillo.

The above photos is a seahorse; the Burlington High School mascot and a mezmerizing creature to watch.

The setting for the Sonora Desert Museum was truly green, lush, and loaded with all types of healthy desert plants. As you walked through the displays, you could not always see the fences that kept the animals from running wild......this made the experience more interesting.
Below are some Mexican Wolves that were quite active as we passed their exhibit

This is one of the many overlooks and shaded spaces along the museum walkway.

Above is a better picture of the red Ocotillo blossom. Below is one of the many cactus blooms we will see throughout our travels in Arizona this spring.

Two javelinas sleeping under a tree. You will see in an upcoming post for Buenos Aires NWR, a javalina in the wild - I ran into one on a hike and was able to snap his photo as he stood and stared at me.

We watched this sea otter for awhile because he was so active. They had underwater glass viewing area so we could also watch from below the surface. He was on all four cylinders and really putting on a show.

We have scanned documents now at two refuges that exist to protect the Desert Bighorn Sheep. They were, at one time, an endangered species. However, thanks in large part to the efforts of these refuges and other agencies, these sheep are about to be taken off of this list. The sheep in these photos were the first ones we had seen on our travels. We were excited to see them, even though it was in a zoo. A few weeks from our visit to Tucson, we will see one in the wild - it was a thrill - on a boat tour of the Topock Gorge along the Colorado River in the Havasu NWR. Stay tuned for photos of that sighting!

If you look closely at these photos you will see a hummingbird. The museum had a special exhibit that allowed you to be inside with them all buzzing around.

We used the very end of daylight to drive through the Saguaro National Park West. We would have loved more time here.....tons of trails and mega-amounts of cactus. What a cool place. The rest of the photos are from our quick tour of the Park before they kicked us out at dusk.