Sunday, Monday, Tuesday May 25 – 27

Sequoia National Park, outside Tucson, AZ   (Se-war-oh)

Moving on one of the tips the couple on Sugarloaf shared with us Mark navigated us to Pima Air Museum.  This is the largest private museum of aircraft in the world and holds a fabulous collection of WWI, WWII and other planes.   Michael did not want to stop but once there enjoyed the place.  My most often asked questions to others we meet in camps or trails or really, anytime we start chatting with others is a ‘what do you recommend we do in this area’ question.  Mark & Michael are learning that others are a wonderful source of information.  Michael remarked earlier that I was being quite chatty with the rangers and other folks we were meeting and he was finding it quite weird.  I explained that if I didn’t chat with others how would we learn which spots we should visit.  Believe me he does not hold back either when meeting others and inquiring as to where we should go.  On our last trip while on a tour through Mammoth cave he heard another adult mention that she was from Nashville.  Even though this woman mentioned this to another adult Michael remembered who she was and later when he could he started a conversation with her, asking her what we should see in Nashville.  Her tips made for an enjoyable 3-hr stop for us. 

Dry with a very strong sun sums up this place.  Last week’s rain enabled the desert plants to bloom and be green.  A green desert but not the green of the east since the gray and brown gravel ground still prevails. The campground, Gilbert Ray, is huge but empty and coming here without a reservation is not an issue.  We found a site with a pavilion too which kept the strong morning, afternoon and evening sun off us.  The night was cold, in the low 40’s and the wind kicked us giving us lots of worries about our tent staying in place.  The ground was too hard for stacks so we dropped our tent in the morning.

We spent our first full day here at the Sonora Desert Museum.  I really questioned myself before we spent the money, cause that’s what it boiled down to, whether or not the boys would gain anything from this museum. 

What a great place!   It was a mixture of nature field walk and a desert zoo.  Both boys really enjoyed the place and while their brochure suggests that one would spend 3 to 4 hours there we left after seven hours.  Great place.  My favorite had to be the hummingbird exhibit where we walked among the hummingbirds as they busily drank nectar, searched for bugs, and cared for their young.  It was also the place where we learned that their diet consists of 90% insects and only 10% nectar.  We had always thought that these tiny birds couldn’t exist solely on just nectar but needed protein somehow.  When the center first opened they found baby bird eggs were falling out of the nests.  The hummingbird center lacked spiders and sure enough the birds need the sticky spider web material to hold their nests together.   Great museum to go to and seems to run mostly on docents since we never saw a staff member.

From the desert museum we took a little scenic drive to the top of Mt. Lemmon.  Standing at 9000’ above a 2000’ floor provides one with great views of the area.  Brown, lifeless was what we saw and while the geology is interesting the lack of greenery and the appearance of lifelessness is not at all appealing to any of us.  The drive to the top was far more difficult on me than the drive down—love that second gear—-and somewhere on the way down we all decided that we would leave this area in the morning.  We had seen enough of the dry desert area.