Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Yesterday we visited this museum. It was in the Tucson coupon book we bought, so the cost was $14.50 for both of us. I loved this museum!

It’s actually a combination zoo, museum and botanical garden. Most of the exhibits are outside. Some have outside and inside viewing areas.

They have a raptor show twice a day. Our friends Janie and John visited last year and told us to go to both shows. Thanks to their great advice, we saw two awesome raptor shows.

The morning show featured five different raptors. The trainers come out and the birds are released. They soar over the crowd and then land on perches throughout the viewing area so everyone can see them up close. The first bird was a Chihuahuan Raven.

Next up was a Gray Hawk.

 

After that a Great Horned Owl came soaring towards us. What an awesome site!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was a Prairie Falcon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final bird was a Red Tail Hawk. It was absolutely amazing to see these birds fly overhead and then get to see them up close!

In between the raptor shows we also went to a presentation about venomous creatures in the desert. The first one was a Gila Monster. I didn’t realize they are venomous. The lady said odds are slim to actually see one in the wild.

The second one was a rattlesnake. The guy gave us lots of information about them. I always thought that rattlesnake bites weren’t that big of a deal. We learned that although most bites aren’t deadly, the venom eats away the tissue from the inside out. If left untreated, a person can lose their fingers, toes, arm or leg. The anti-venom medicine costs $5,000 per vial, and up to 20 vials are needed to treat a bite. It’s very costly and painful. I’ll be extra careful to keep my eyes open for any rattlesnakes.

We saw a number of animals that can be found in the desert, including a Javelina

Bobcats

Mountain Lion

 

Prairie Dogs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, drumroll please, the ever allusive Big Horn Sheep. You may recall Kevin and I hiked a number of trails last year in California looking for them. We never saw any. At least I’ve now seen them in captivity. What amazing creatures. They ran up and down those rocks as if they were flat ground.

 

 

 

 

The afternoon raptor show featured four Harris Hawks. They soared over us for about 10 minutes and then landed on the perches. Another fantastic spectacle.

There was a hummingbird enclosure. This little mama was sitting on her nest. How cool is that!

There was much more to see, but I think that’s enough pictures. I would highly recommend this museum. In fact, I think it would be worth a trip to Tucson to see it.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, and Happy 100th Birthday to Arizona today. As a birthday treat, Tucson had a little snow today. We just had rain where we are, but the northern areas of Tucson had a little snow. Highs today were only in the 50s. Tomorrow is expected to be in the 60s and back to the 70s for the weekend. I’m hoping the rain will help along the desert blooms.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

A Bike Ride & Valentine’s Dinner

A couple of weeks ago we picked up a Tucson bike route map at one of the Visitor Centers. There are several paved bike trails throughout the city. Yesterday Kevin loaded the bikes on the truck and off we went to ride one on of the trails.

The trail we rode on runs along both sides of the Santa Cruz River as you can see from the above sign. I took a picture of the sign so that you would believe me when I tell you the trail runs along a river. See if you can find the river. Also notice the graffiti in the top left corner. There was graffiti all along the trail. Such a shame. I saw on the news that Tucson has a real problem with graffiti and they’re trying to crack down on it. What’s wrong with people.

As you can see, the trail is paved and very nice. The mountains in the distance were a pretty site as we rode along. But, the river is dry as bone. I can’t imagine this ever actually having running water in it. In fact, we saw a cowboy riding along the river bed. That’s definitely something you don’t see every day.

We also saw a couple of roadrunners. This guy ran right in front of Kevin’s bike on the path. I guess he only wanted to show me his back side.

The section of the path we were on is not very long. We rode up and down both sides in a little over an hour. Next week we plan on going to another section of the trail that goes from the city center to the very north end of town. My odometer on my bike is broken so I don’t know how many miles we actually covered.

Yesterday and today were gorgeous days with sunny skies and highs around 80. The weathermen have been going on and on about polar air that is coming in this week. Highs on Tuesday are only supposed to be around 59. Brrr!  :)

Tonight we went to Kevin’s favorite eatery, Texas Roadhouse, for an early Valentine’s dinner. We went early at 4:45 and the place was packed. I guess everyone else had the same idea. We waited about 30 minutes and had a nice dinner with enough leftovers for another meal for both of us.

Both of us cut way down on our eating this week after all that cruise eating. We also tried to eat healthy foods and walked an hour each day. This morning was the weigh-in. Both of us stayed exactly the same. What’s up with that! Why is it so easy to pack on the pounds and so hard to lose even an ounce? One of life’s little inequities. Of well, we’re not giving up.

Remember, when the title of one of my posts has *s around it, it’s a blogsvertise.com ad. Yesterdays post took me about one minute to post, and pays $10. If you see the *s, it’s up to you if you want to read it or not. I’ve been posting ads for them for about a year and earned $200 in that time. I’m not getting rich, but I like it better than the Google ads.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Hawaii Cruise–Part 3

Our third island stop was Oahu. We arrived on Friday, Jan. 27th, just two days before the Pro Bowl. There were tons of people everywhere, and the traffic was terrible.

We rented a car with pick-up at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. The hotel was hosting some Pro Bowl events. We stood in line for 1/2 hour at the Hertz kiosk to get our car. For a number of reasons, this was not a good experience with Hertz.

When we were here in 1987, the Hilton was one tower. It has grown into a huge complex with five towers and more being built. Waikiki was a tourist trap back then, but it’s much worse now. You can’t even see the ocean anymore unless you’re staying at one of the hotels. This area was by far my least favorite stop on the trip.

We finally were able to get out of the traffic jams and headed to Pearl Harbor. We had all been there before, but wanted to get our National Park Passports stamped. This is another area that has grown tremendously. There are now several ships you can tour. In order to get out to the USS Arizona Memorial, you better be there when the ticket windows open or forget it. We couldn’t even see the movie because you needed tickets which were already given out until late in the afternoon. We looked around a little, got our books stamped and moved on.

Our plan was to stay away from the touristy area and drive around the north side of the island. We had heard this was the time of the year the surf competitions were going on, and that the surf on that side of the island was amazing. So, we spent most of the day in the car driving around the entire island. We found the beach known as the Bonzai Pipeline. There was a surf competition beginning within the next few days.

There were quite a few surfers in the water. We were told the surf was actually not big enough and that’s why they weren’t competing yet. It looked pretty big to me. I wouldn’t want to be out there.

As we continued around the island, we saw some amazing scenery. There have been quite a few movies and TV shows filmed among the mountains here. One of the most memorable is Jurassic Park. We saw some breathtaking scenery that looked just like the movie. It was difficult to get good pictures because the sun was right over the mountains, but trust me when I tell you it was amazing.

We also stopped at the Dole Plantation.

There was a little train ride you could go on that took you around the plantation. We saw lots of different types of plants including pineapple fields. It takes around 15 months for a pineapple to grow. All of the planting and harvesting is done by hand. As labor intensive as it is to grow them, I’m surprised they’re not more expensive.

Here’s a banana tree.

Sugar cane

and breadfruit

The next day our stop was Kona, on the opposite side from Hilo on the Big Island. Once again I was up on deck to look for whales. This time there were several humpback whales off the coast. We actually saw them breach out of the water three times, but I didn’t get any pictures of that. Here’s one of them waving his flipper at us. It was an amazing site.

We had purchased an excursion through the ship for Kona. Kevin and I and Joan and Al went on the Zodiac snorkeling trip. I think it was one of the most fun things we did. I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t want to risk getting my camera wet. The Zodiac boats are the same types of rubber rafts you see the Navy Seal teams use in the movies. There were 16 of us on the boat. Our captain took us out into the ocean and we saw a huge Manta Ray, a school of Spinner Dolphins and some Bottlenose Dolphins. One of them jumped out of the water just like Flipper. We were very close to all of them.

Then we headed to a Marine Preserve area for snorkeling. This was only my second time snorkeling, and I enjoyed it much more than the first time. I saw all kinds of beautiful colorful fish and incredible coral.

On the way back, the captain showed us some sea caves and lava tubes. It was about a 3-1/2 hour trip, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

After the trip, we stopped at the Kona Brewery and sampled some of their beers. We walked around and did a little shopping. Kona was the only port where the city was within walking distance of the pier. Most of the ports were in industrial areas and there wasn’t anywhere you could walk to from the ship. I think Kona was my favorite stop.

Back on the ship, we were treated to a breathtaking sunset.

Our last island stop was Kauai. We had again rented a mini-van through Hertz. The rental process on this island was very smooth.

We drove about an hour to the Kalalau Lookout where we were actually above the clouds.

Then we headed to Waimea Canyon, known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. More breathtaking views.

There were some goats up there, too cute!

We stopped at the Kauai Coffee Plantation. I didn’t really know how coffee is grown. They grow it on these trellises and have a huge machine that fits over the tops of the plants and “tickles” the ripe coffee beans off the plants with fiberglass fingers. Very interesting.

Here are the beans.

Our last stop was Wailua Falls which were seen on the old TV show, Fantasy Island. We were lucky enough to see a double rainbow created by the falls. This may be the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen.

Kauai was the shortest stop on the trip, so we weren’t able to see more of the island. I had read that it is called The Garden Island because of all the lush vegetation. We didn’t get to see that part of the island. One of the peaks of this island has the greatest annual rainfall amount in the world with over 460 inches per year.

There were so many beautiful flowers on all of the islands. I put together a collage of a few of them.

So, we left the Hawaiian Islands and spent five days at sea. On the fifth day, we stopped in Ensenada, Mexico for the evening. There is a law that requires the ship to stop in a foreign port before returning to the US, so that’s why we stopped in Mexico for five hours.

We got off the ship and took a shuttle the two miles to Ensenada. We were in search of a good margarita. There were tour guides at the bus stop to help tourists navigate their way through the town safely. Tony, one of the guides, showed us a bar where he said they had the best margaritas. It was owned by a friend of his. I had a mango margarita for $3. It was huge, but I don’t think there was much tequila in it as I barely felt a thing.

We walked along the main street for a few blocks and saw all the typical tourist stuff. I did buy some vanilla for my mom. We talked to Tony, the tour guide, for a while. He was raised in the US by Mexican immigrant parents, but returned to Mexico with his family several years ago.

He claims the biggest problem in Mexico is not drugs, but illegal smuggling of people. He claims they get between $10,000 and $20,000 per person. He liked the idea of the border wall. He also told us that the children selling gum are rented out by their parents to a boss. The boss brings them to town and has them pester tourists selling gum. What a shame.

Well, that’s the end of my Hawaii posts. We’ve spent the last few days catching up on things here at home. We’ve been hiking in the desert for an hour each day, and we did play Bean Bag Baseball today at the park. We’ll probably join in on some of the other activities they have here before we leave.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Hawaii Cruise–Part 2

Our first island stop was at Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. My main goal for this stop was to see Volcanoes National Park. The six of us had prearranged a rental mini-van for this stop through Hertz. The shuttle was at the pier when we got off the ship and the entire rental process was very smooth and quick.

Kevin did the driving. We had our GPS with us, and it worked great. We made our way to the Visitor Center and watched the movie which was very interesting.

Next, we drove along Crater Rim Drive to the viewing area of the main crater called Kilauea Caldera. About half of the loop road was closed due to a recent fissure opening up in the volcano which is emitting dangerous levels of sulphur dioxide. As you can see, there is a lot of gas coming out of the crater.

Our next stop was at the Steam Vents Overlook. It’s amazing to me that all of this steam is coming up out of cracks and holes in the mountain, and we were able to walk right through the area without breaking through. You could literally put your hand right up next to a vent and feel how hot the steam was. It was a very surreal experience.

We hiked on a short trail to see the Sulphur Banks. This area reminded me of some areas of Yellowstone National Park.

 

Our final stop in the park was the Thurston Lava Tube. A lava tube is formed when the outer layer of the lava hardens and forms a crust as lava is still flowing through inside. Once the lava inside drains, a tube is created. This particular tube is big enough to drive a bus through!

I was somewhat disappointed that you couldn’t actually see any lava in the park. According to some people I talked to, the lava is still flowing on the other side of the island. The only way to see it is by air or sea. Apparently, some cruise ships sail by at night so passengers can see the glowing lava. Our ship did not do this.

Our next stop was at Akaka Falls State Park. We hiked a short loop trail where we saw a small waterfall and then Akaka Falls. What a gorgeous site with lots of lush vegetation all along the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we toured the island of Maui. I got up early to see if I could spot any whales as we came into port. No luck, but I did witness a beautiful sunrise. As you can see, the picture looks a bit hazy. That’s due to VOG (volcanic fog). The gases from the volcano on the big island is currently causing VOG on all of the other islands. Our tour guide told us that it can be quite a problem for people with respiratory issues.

We had booked an excursion for Maui through Roberts Hawaii Tours touring the Road to Hana. The cost was $35 per person less than through the ship’s excursions and was basically the same tour. The nice thing about Roberts is they work with the ship’s itineraries. You tell them the ship you’ll be sailing on, and they guarantee they will have you back on time. We were a little delayed getting off the ship, but they were right there waiting for us. I would highly recommend them.

When Kevin and I were on Maui in 1987, we had a rental car and drove the Hana Road ourselves. This time I wanted Kevin to be able to enjoy the scenery and we wanted to get the narration from a tour driver. Our tour was over 8 hours long, and our driver gave us interesting narration the entire time. The road has 617 turns and 45 bridges with amazing scenery at every turn.

 

These trees are called Rainbow Eucalyptus and the trunks are naturally multi-colored. So cool!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were some beautiful beaches along the road with black lava rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, this beach with black sand and some sea caves to explore.

We stopped for a short time at the Kipahulu area of Haleakala National Park. When we were on Maui in 1987, Haleakala National Park included only the summit of the extinct volcano on the island. Since then it has been expanded to include these waterfalls along the ocean. They were formally called The Seven Sacred Pools. Unfortunately, we didn’t stop long enough to walk to the falls. The majority of the people on the bus were more interested in stopping at a wine tasting spot later in the tour, so we only stayed about 15 minutes. I’m often amazed at what people are thinking. There are wine tasting places all over the country, but this is probably the only time they’ll be at this spot.

 

Here’s part of the falls from the bus window. On our trip in 1987, the road ended at these falls. Since that time, it has been opened up to all traffic. Parts of it were unpaved, and it was quite bumpy at times. I’m amazed these mini-buses make this trip every day.

 

 

 

 

The other side of the island is very different. From lush tropical rain forest we emerged into dry ranch lands. This is the Maui Canyon. It’s hard to believe this is the same island.

Back on the ship we watched a beautiful sunset as we sailed out of the port. Do you see the outrigger canoe in the harbor (click on picture to enlarge)? Our guide told us that many people enjoy these canoes for exercise. There are clubs that compete throughout all of the Hawaiian Islands.

My next post will cover Oahu, Kauai and Kona.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!