Saturday's visit to the Desert Museum

   I went to a fantastic zoo, botanical garden, and museum just out of Tuscon called the Desert Museum. The group and I rode through Gates Pass, an exciting, windy, and hilly road that hugs the side of a very steep sloping hill. At, some times, the hills were short and sudden so it felt like a roller coaster. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but we had lots of hairpin turns and stayed to the left to avoid going over the cliff!


Pictures from the scenic overlook at Gate's Pass.

The treacherous part of the road is located at the craggy hill that is in the middle of the picture.

 

    We made it at the Desert Museum at 5:00pm for the special Saturday night "The Desert comes alive" special. We started by touring the museum with the reptile and amphibian exhibits and explored their man-made cave. I got to try out a very large pair of bat ears!



   And checkout some fascinating crystals that can all be found in Arizona! Mom would have loved this place because after the crystal exhibit, they have an area of "mine waste". You can spend time picking through the rocks to find some with crystals and neat colors. Don't worry, I grabbed a few.

After touring the indoor exhibits, I toured the trails of the desert and checked out the animals. I saw a coyote, mountain lion, ocelot, bear, bobcat, fox, javelinas, ground hogs, a screech owl, and a wolf.

You can always count on a beautiful sunset out here

We stayed until 9:30 to listen to an enthobotany lecture all about edible native plants. After that we headed to Lindy's on 4th, a small restaurant known for its burgers and was featured on the Man vs. Food tv show. We didn't eat one of the challenge burgers, but we had some delicious unique burgers. Mine was called the Hawaiian. It had swiss cheese, pineapple, teriyaki sauce, onion, lettuce and tomato. Delicious!