Friday, April 9, 2010

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Our first stop on our Tucson vacation was the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This really isn't a stereotypical museum, but rather half Botanical Gardens, half zoo. Per their website: Exhibits re-create the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region so realistically you find yourself eye-to-eye with mountain lions, prairie dogs, Gila monsters, and more. Within the Museum grounds, you will see more than 300 animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants. There are almost 2 miles of paths traversing 21 acres of beautiful desert.

After entering the museum we spent $1 for the optional animal tracking booklet. Scattered through out the grounds are 14 stations, each containing an animal track stamp to add to your booklet. We figured this would help keep Morgan entertained. We figured we wouldn't walk the whole 2 miles, but we could get further with Morgan if she had an incentive. Little did we know...

...that this would become an obsession for her. She was on a mission (and sucessful) to collect ALL 14 stamps over the 2 mile course, sometimes doubling back. We entered the place at 9:30 and were in the gift shop at 4:30. They close at 5.

Needless to stay, we saw almost everything. And let me tell you, there is A LOT to see. I don't know why, but I didn't take any pictures (besides a very fuzzy, unworthy to post one) of any of the animals but there were mexican wolves, cougars, bobcats, coyotoes, beavers, otters, bears, scorpions and rattlesnakes to name just a few of the hundreds housed here.

I did capture some of the many birds that were birds in displays as well as just visiting, including the Roadrunner in the first picture below. Which is definetely smaller then the roadrunner in the Wile E. Coyotoe cartoons.



There were caves and hidden paths to explore.

And lots of hands on activities. Including crawling into a turtle shell and then getting stuck and instead of anyone helping you out, they all laugh and take pictures of you in your misery.

And lots...

...and lots...
...and lots of catcus.


1 comment:

Heather said...

Looks like fun. Tyler would have been ALL over that stamping brochure thing too!