We spent a whole day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Wow. It hosts 300 animals and 120 plants and minerals native to the Sonoran Desert region. It is cleverly laid out with 2 miles of outdoor walks interpersed with tours through caves, shaded displays of reptiles, underwater views of fish and seals, history museums, and aviaries and "meet and greet" with real live stars such as the 18" tall barn owe chstted with!
The different habitat of the Sonora desert were fascinating, and beautiful and tour friendly! At every new sight we found ice cold water fountains, shaded bench stops and the washrooms even had a complimentary sunscreen dispenser beside the soap dispenser!
One area was the Riparian Habitat! Riparian means "stream-side" - how perfectly named after our fisherman Rip! The desert has many such locations of free flowing streams; many less in the last 10 years though.
An interesting tidbit from "Life on the Rocks". It takes 80 pounds of rock from the Sonoran Desert to produce 1 penny. It takes 150,000 tons of the earth's crust from any other region to produce the same 1 penny!!
Rip's favourite stop was the Hummingbird Aviary. Here we got up close and personal with many of these beautiful birds who whisked by us to savour nectar from one flower, then another. We saw for the first time a mother warming her nest of 2 eggs - she was 12 inches from our face!
My favourite area was the walk-in aviary with more than 40 species of native birds living in trees and bathing in streams and waterfalls.
Along with the lizards, snakes, scorpions, big horns, bobcats, javelinas and so much more we were spinning with info and delight! This place is a zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden all in one - amazing. A real Riparian pleaser!
PS I finished my "relax" book last night, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique-Bauby. Highly recommend - a man after a cardiovascular event in his 40's lives with what he calls "Locked In Syndrome". This is his story dictated by use of blinks and nods.
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ReplyDeleteHello Joyce and Rip - okay let's try this again - sorry had some major typos!!??!!!!
ReplyDeleteI was so happy to see the "WoW" for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. One of my favourite spots in Arizona - I have been so hoping you would visit!!!! Blessings, Big Hugs, Evelyn