Our first stop in AZ was in Tucson. Thanks to the hospitality of a friend in aviation, we stayed near the airport. There is actually two parts to this park – on either side of Tucson. We visited the west park, because of the great desert museum nearby.

The saguaro cactus is truly amazing. It doesn’t grow it’s first arm until it is almost 50yrs old and can live for 200+ yrs. After a tour of the visitors center, attending a Park Ranger talk, and a short film on Native America cultures in the area, we made our way into the park to hike around.

The next morning, when it was a bit cooler, we visited the Desert Museum and Zoo just south of the park. We arrive just in time to see the “Raptor Free Flight” show which is an awesome display of raptor birds in flight – my photo / video skills didn’t fully capture the coolness factor on this one!

Afterwards we toured the other desert animals, including our new local favorite – the javelinas, which look like a pig and smell like a skunk 🙂 They actually are more closely related to hippos than pigs though.

That afternoon we visited some family in the area at a festival celebrating local cultures.

The festival was at a historic family cattle ranch that also had several displays about life in the west.