saguaro national park

Trust us to go to the desert and have it pour rain all day!

Today's park adventure took us to the outskirts of Tucson in the early early morning. We saw the sun come up behind us as we drove through the mountains, and it was spectacular. Luckily, there was a little pull-off area so we could stop and take some pictures.

As the sky lightened, we got closer and closer to the western section of Saguaro National Park. (We would love to have gone to the eastern section too, but there was just no time this trip. Yeah, that's right, I said this trip — the park is definitely on my repeat visit wish list, and I also wouldn't mind seeing Tucson during the daytime.)

It was too early for any of the park offices to be open, so we started with an early morning stroll on the Desert Discovery Nature Trail. We saw plenty of rabbits, and a few birds, and we heard coyotes howling in the distance, but that was the extent of the wildlife. Mostly we were there for the cactuses — and boy were there a lot of cactuses! Hedgehog, barrel, cholla, prickly pear, and, of course, saguaro, standing sentry in the cool morning.

After that, we headed to the visitor center, which was still not open, but we ran into a friendly maintenance man who pointed us in the direction of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which was about to open, so we decided to make that our next stop. It was raining lightly, but we weren't too worried because we figured it would blow over pretty quickly. Except the joke was on us, because even after an hour of exploring all the indoor exhibits at the museum and having a lengthy discussion with one of the docents about cactus skeletons (side note: Cactus skeletons are wood! This was a revelation to me; I always assumed cactuses just had some thick green jelly stuff inside them.), it was still raining, even harder than before. It was pouring, even. Which was really neat because we learned that each saguaro can hold onto 200 gallons of water if there's a good downpour ... but not so neat because we were all soaking wet and cold and hungry.

Luckily for us, one of the museum docents helpfully directed us to a cafe that wasn't too far away, and we went in and feasted. Max had breakfast tacos, and I got mesquite pancakes with agave honey (made from cactuses). (Mike just had his usual eggs and toast, in case you were wondering.) By the time we finished breakfast and headed back into the park, the visitor center was open, so we did some exploring inside, and once the rain let up to just a steady drizzle, we took the Cactus Garden Trail from the visitor center and did some more exploring. Mike saw a gila woodpecker on top of a saguaro, which is something I very much wanted to see, but it was gone before I got there with the camera. Darn quick birds!

We finished our visit with the 9-mile Bajada Loop Drive, along which we saw plenty of cactuses, but also a big mule deer. The rain had picked up again by this time, so there wasn't a whole lot more we could see, so we bid a fond farewell to Saguaro ... at least for now.

petrified forest national park

Friends, you may remember that long ago, we made a promise to the boys: When each boy turns 13, he gets a special trip to the destination of his choice. It's just a trip for the new teenager and his parents, and no brothers are allowed.

Well, the time is upon us again: Max turns 13 next week.

He had a hard time figuring out exactly where he wanted to go. His first choice was Portland (we heartily approved that choice), but it's cold in early February, and he wanted to go somewhere warm. For a while, we thought we would fly to Las Vegas, then drive to Death Valley, but eventually he decided he wasn't too excited about that. Finally, we came up with a plan, and now we're off adventuring.

We flew into Phoenix late last night, got our rental car, checked into our hotel, and slept for about four hours before hitting the road early this morning. Our first stop was the meteor crater near Winslow. It's super-touristy and more than a little cheesy, but still, it's a METEOR CRATER A MILE WIDE. We got there right when the place opened, so there weren't many people, and we had plenty of time to admire the views.

Back on the road, we headed east on I-40 to Petrified Forest National Park. We weren't really sure what to expect. I mean, we read about it, but all three of us were still like, "Oh, so there are logs on the ground? Sure, that's cool, I guess." Trust me when I say that we were not prepared for just how cool it really turned out to be. Petrified wood is gorgeous and fascinating! And there were cactuses!

We started at the south end of the park, in the Rainbow Forest. We walked all along the Giant Logs Trail, and saw the biggest fossil log, Old Faithful, which is 10 feet in diameter. We spent a lot of time getting up close and personal with the petrified wood. It's so nice to be able to actually touch it and get really close and examine it at leisure.

We continued north through the Blue Mesa, past The Tepees, and stopped again to see Newspaper Rock, which is covered by petroglyphs. We were pretty far above the rock itself, but I was surprised by how good the views were.

The northern part of the park is the Painted Desert, so named because the different mineral concentrations give the mountains their colors. We walked along a trail that led into the mountains for a while, and fell for the oldest trick in the book: a fake lizard. Ahead of us on the trail, people were taking pictures and talking excitedly about something on the ground, so we walked up cautiously with camera at the ready. We took pictures of the lizard on the ground, along with the other people, then I got a little suspicious when it didn't slither away, so I put my foot right up against it ... and discovered it was a rubber toy. In my defense, it looked real! All the people thought so. Anyway, all us tourists had a hearty laugh, and one lady ended up taking the lizard home as her souvenir from the trip.

At one of the vistas, we also ran into a raven that was completely unbothered by human activity, but I can assure you that at least it was real.

On the way out of the park, we stopped along historic Route 66 and took some pictures of Max by a scenic car carcass. Then we headed south for a few hours through amazing mountain passes (I'm so sad I didn't take any pictures/videos -- it was beautiful and more than a little terrifying!) to get to Tucson. We got to town just after dark, and with just enough time to check into our hotel before we headed out to meet Mike's Aunt Cookie for dinner. Dinner was delicious (just ask Max to tell you about those tacos sometime!) and it was wonderful to meet Cookie and her partner, Dennis. It really feels special when we take a trip somewhere and are able to spend time with family or friends we haven't seen in a long time.

the birds of circus forticus

Friends, it's been a time around here. The start of the year has not been particularly kind in terms of weather, health, school/work, or pretty much any other metric. But we're still here, and so are the birds. Lately it feels like the whole world is on fire, so I find it really comforting to spend part of each day watching (and taking pictures of) the birds outside my office window. I've got a great setup: There are feeders directly in front, and small trees to each side. This winter, I've seen hawks, cardinals, blue jays, finches, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers (downy and red-bellied), sparrows, European starlings, and juncos, among others. It's a show I never get tired of watching, and here are some of my favorites:

finally we go outside

I'm finally well again! I've been a little stir crazy these past few weeks, so it felt really good to get outside this morning. Liam had a speech meet, so he couldn't join us, but the rest of us headed to Potato Creek to do a little hike as the snow started to fall. We timed it just right -- we got back home right before the snow really started coming down and the roads got bad. The dogs really enjoyed being out in a new environment, the kids and adults liked getting out of the house, and as a bonus, we had some pretty great bird sightings!