Monday 13 March
Why do problems always insist on following us? This time it was May's car not starting. Ed arranged to have it towed and then he sweet-talked a repairman into taking a quick look at it.
After that was under control, we took a road trip to the Arizona-Sonaran Desert Museum. It was way too crowded to enjoy anything. The aviary had pretty much nothing except doves and a few ground birds of some sort. The hummingbird display had a few interesting birds, but it was so crowded you couldn't move or stand still, either one The plant displays weren't great, either--not compared to the garden we were camping in.
There were probably some exhibits off the beaten path that would have been interesting, but Ed's hip was hurting and he could barely make the meandering circuit through the little bit of the grounds that we did do. The place was nothing like I remembered it. At all. Not cool.
We then drove through a loop of Saguaro National Park. It was lovely, but driving was boring. It would have been nice to walk the trails. But that was not possible.
So, back at camp,
I took a long walk with Molly along the trail that ran beside the road, all the way out to the day use area. (When I say "beside the road", I don't mean adjacent to the road. It followed the road but kept making detours away from it--lots of times you couldn't see the trail from the road or vice-versa.) I didn't realize that the day use area was at the trailhead to a trail that went all the way up to Picacho peak. If I had, I would have brought water and we would have went on up. (The day use area had a parking lot and pit toilets. No water)
As usual, we encountered almost no people -- two small groups -- on the trail, but when we reached the day use area it was full of cars. All we saw in the way of wildlife was one lizard and a gorgeous black-chinned sparrow that posed for me.
If I'm known how gorgeously wonderful it was at Picacho, and how many little trails there were to travel around, I'd have skipped the day's trip to the museum and the national park. There are plenty of Saguaro to enjoy at Picacho, and we never even got time to stop by the visitor center. And there were tons of cactus to Identify. And even though the parking lots were full of people, on the park grounds away from roads, the people were spread out. They all seemed to be enjoying the wildflowers and taking pictures of the "big bloom"--and I don't blame them.
Cactus Wren
Good night at campsite
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