Arizona Trip

I have been quite the traveler lately!  I have been on four trips since September--very unusual for me.  I am way behind in blogging and will have to catch up.  Delwyn had some vouchers for some free flights.  He travels quite a bit for work and he got these from a trip when he volunteered to take a later flight because they had overbooked his original flight.  So Britta, Ryan, and I flew to Tucson to visit my sister Glenda.  She actually lives in Mirana, about 20 miles out of Tucson.  This was Britta and Ryan's first time to fly, and needless to say, they were very excited!  Arizona was not what I expected.  Maybe I was picturing the Sarahara Desert, very hot, dry, and sandy.  It was actually green and pretty.  There are cactus everywhere!  Britta is checking to see if the needles are as sharp as they look--they are!

     Glenda and Britta are standing by a teddy bear cactus.  It looks very soft, but looks can be deceiving!

 We went to the Desert Museum.  When I think of a museum, I think of being inside.  This was more like a zoo.  Everything was outside and all the animals there live in the desert.  There were birds, turtles, beaver, porcupine, lizards, wolf, hummingbirds, just to name a few.  Britta is seeing what it would be like if she were a turtle.  She would be a cute one!

 We walked a lot, and Ryan thought his feet were "going to pop off!"  He was always looking for a place to sit down and rest.  At least he smiled for the picture!

 I was surprised at the many different types of cactus and plants we saw.  It is a beautiful place in it's own way.

 Arizona has wild pigs called javelina.  We really wanted to see one while we were there, but no luck.  Glenda has seen several on her morning bike rides.

 We hiked Sabino canyon on Saturday.  We rode a tram to the top and hiked about 6 miles. We had a great time!  Ryan's feet were not tired today--in fact, he led us most of the way,.  I was surprised to see mountains in Arizona.  Instead of being covered with pine trees like they are in Colorado, they are covered in cactus!  I was amazed!  We learned that catus can store water for 4 years.

 Ryan is acting like a cactus.  He wondered how it would feel to have your arms pointing up all the way.  Cactus live for 60-70 years before they grow any arms.  We wondered why some arms point up, some point down, why some come out of the same place. 

Ryan's teacher wanted us to look for a palo verde tree and asked us to bring back a twig with some leaves on it.  They are studying evaporation and the leaves on this tree are very small because of the heat and how fast water evaporates.  This is Arizona's state tree.  The trunk is green and there are prickles at the end of each branch.  We noticed that everything that grows here has sharp needles or thorns.  Be careful of what you touch!  We had a fabulous trip and saw lots of new things.  We hope we can go again sometime!