Saguaro National Park

August 19th- 22nd

The compass is saying "east", so guess that means we are on our homeward leg- Indio is as far west as we will go.  On our way out of Indio on Sunday morning, I was looking at our Wyndham timeshare book to see if there were any locations in New Mexico.  Well, surprise!  They have an associate location just outside of Tucson.  Being the off-season for desert vacations, we gave it a shot, and we were able to book three nights.  It was a great spot, just northwest of the city, so near everything we wanted to visit.

We came here to visit Saguaro National Park.   The park was established in 1994 to protect the Saguaro and its environment.  Saguaros (pronounced Sa-wah-ros) are a true symbol of the Southwest and America's largest cactus.  It is often referred to as the desert monarch.  They can grow up to 50 feet tall and large plants may weigh 8 tons or more.  They grow very slowly, taking up to 67 years to grow six feet.Their branches, which allow additional flowers and therefore seeds, always grow upward.  The flowers, which are white and waxy, are pollinated by bats, as well as birds and other insects.  In a 150-200 year lifetime, they may produce up to 40 million seeds!  However, due to the extreme desert conditions, few of these ever even sprout, let alone grow to adult size.

We settled in to our beautiful timeshare unit on Sunday, watching a monsoon thunderstorm come in across the mountains from our patio.  Monday, we decided to start our visit by going to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, located just outside of the entrance to the western section of the park.  Saguaro National Park is composed of two sections- the western district, which is hotter, drier, and lower Sonoran desert environment and the eastern district, which is cooler, slightly wetter, and considered "high desert".  The Desert Museum has a variety of information on desert environment, including cacti, birds, snakes, insects, and animals that might be found in this setting.  It is a great way to be introduced to this environment.

We wandered the museum for the morning, seeing various cacti and other plants.  We saw prairie dogs, Bighorn sheep, and many varieties (too many!) of rattlesnakes.  The hummingbird aviary was fascinating and allowed a close-up look at these tiny creatures.

We spent the afternoon in the western district of the park, driving the scenic road and taking a couple of short walks (too hot to hike...)  The Saguaro are at their best and most abundant in this part of the park.  We were happy to see that some of the cacti were blossoming, including the Fish Hook barrel cactus (the picture will show you why they have that name...), which had a range of colors from yellow to orange to red.  Dale fell in love with them.  We probably have more pictures of those then anything else!  Nothing, however, was as impressive as the Saguaros.

Tuesday morning we headed out early to the eastern district.  Here, after talking with a ranger, we decided to take the 8 mile dirt road that takes you through a Saguaro forest that is up to 150 years old.  The higher elevations of this section, which can only be reached on foot or horseback, have forests of oak, pine and fir.

After a picnic lunch in the park, we decided to do something different and drove down to Tombstone.  This town was known as one of the bloodiest towns in the West during the 1880's, and apparently, that reputation was well deserved.  On one particular corner, there were 17 people known to have been killed at that location.  They had to close the cemetery due to lack of space.  We went to a comedic western show, which was very well done, a lot of laughs, then toured the town on a trolley to learn more of the history.  Storms threatened all afternoon, but we came away rain-free.  The Monsoon season was inhibiting our trip somewhat- never got to use the pool or spa at the timeshare, as there were always storms by the time we got back!

Monsoon Storm from patio

Let sleeping cats lie...

Bighorn sheep

Prairie Dog

Hummingbird having lunch

Hummingbird watching TV- really!

Monarch in Butterfly Garden

Desert View

Desert Monarch

Cactus flower

Fish Hook Barrel Cactus flowers- note hooks!

Another cactus flower

Chain fruit Cholla blossoms

Saguaro skeleton

Another desert view

Triple barrel cactus

Giant Saguaro

Lying down on the job...

View of Tucson

Tombstone "miner"

Two bad guys and the sheriff- Tombstone

Tombstone street

This was a great spot to visit, and we were tempted to extend by another day.  However, we had decided we wanted to try to be home by Friday of Labor Day weekend, so decided to move on.  Wednesday we left for El Paso, Texas, on our way to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.