Tucson

From Guaymas, we caught a bus up to Tucson. It was our first time in Tucson and we really liked it.  Dina’s former colleague Barry now lives there and was kind enough to have us stay with him. He recommended the Arizona-Senora Desert Museum, and after we went there we can understand why. In addition to lots of information about how plants and animals survive the desert conditions, we enjoyed the two aviaries (one with local birds, the other just with hummingbirds).

Flowering Cactus

Local resident

Pretty Bird

Hummingbird in flight

There is also an observatory at Kitt Peak with a night program for the public.  After our astrophysicist Nikki visited back in December, we’re both watching the night sky more, so we went with Barry up to the observatory (http://www.noao.edu/outreach/nop/). Perhaps Barry has become interested enough in the night sky to buy himself a nice little home telescope.

Sunset from Kitt Peak
The start of the Night Observation Program

Before leaving Tucson we visited the University of Arizona campus.  It’s a lovely campus with a great museum and the Steward Observatory Mirror lab (http://mirrorlab.as.arizona.edu/), both of which were very interesting.  We didn’t have enough time to drive up to the ski hill.  The road is supposed to be fun and the views are said to be awesome.

Tucson is on our list for our return trip and we’re looking forward to it. Hopefully, we’ll see Barry and his wife will be in town.