2006-2012
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
In 2005 the realtor who listed our home in Austin recommended that we try the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum once we moved to Tucson. This was great advice. Going to the Desert Museum became a pattern in our lives while we lived in Arizona. It was the place we tried to take all of our guests; it was fun for kids and parents. It was one of my go-to home school field trip destinations. We went there several times a year.
A trip to the Desert Museum was a sensory feast. After driving 20 minutes on the freeway and other busy roads, we turned onto a narrow, winding road. Rock shops appeared along the road as other signs of civilization dwindled. We drove another 15 minutes among cliffs and ancient saguaros, tall and haunting. Not only was the road winding and narrow, it had great dips and inclines, making it feel like a roller coaster if we took the curves and dips with some acceleration. The van would fill with squeals of laughter as stomachs dropped with the dips and turns. The smell of sunblock floated in the air as the kids prepared for the day in the sun. I could look back and see children’s eyes wide with excitement. Sometimes they would raise their hands high above their heads for the declines and quick ascents. I’d turn up the music.
We always started the day early, arriving at the Desert Museum as it opened. I loaded our green stroller with water bottles, snacks, hats, the camera bag, sunblock, and notebooks. It was quite a production, setting out for a day in this mostly outdoor museum. It grew hot quickly, so we followed a path where we knew we could find shade at the hottest parts of the day. The “museum” felt mostly like a walk in the desert with occasional docents along the way holding birds, skulls, or other desert animals. There were enclosures for animals, but only a few structures that provided shade.
Our favorite attractions were in the summer, when the butterfly gardens were teeming with caterpillars and butterflies and the monsoon rains had awakened the flowers. We avoided school field trip days by going in the summer, too. Sometimes we would stop to sketch the hummingbirds or linger and watch the desert tortoises in the early part of the day. By 10:00, we were usually very warm and we would make our way to the pavilions with air conditioning and then the ice cream parlor built out on the trail. The ice cream cones always seemed like manna, and I didn’t care that it was only 10 am because it made the grumpiness disappear.
There were mammals, reptiles, insects, spiders, monkeys, and birds to see. Our favorite animal was probably the mountain lion that had a cave where it would sleep, its face sometimes pressed up against the window for the kids to admire closely.
The mountain lion was always at the end of our ability to cope with the heat, so we would head up the hill toward the cave for the rest of the day. The cave was man-made, and you entered on a paved path. Inside there were exhibits about space and volcanoes, rocks, and minerals. Best of all, there were tunnels going off the main path for the kids to explore. These cave-like tunnels were narrow, smooth with wear, and a little smelly with mildew and stale people smells. Those who braved these narrow passageways were rewarded with a view of cave formations, great stalactites and stalagmites illuminated in golden light. I would sit at the base of these tunnels on a rock and let the kids wander and play for about an hour, hearing their happy voices echo through the corridors.
The final leg of our journey took us out of the cave past a “mine tailings” exhibit where kids could search the gravel for shiny, colored rocks. Each guest was allowed to keep one or two rocks. Serious thought went into these choices. Pockets were emptied on flat surfaces and the rocks were admired, but in the end, only a few would become ours. We stored our treasure rocks in the small compartment in our stroller. One last stop before the big hill to the parking area was the excavation area where kids would put on goggles and chip off plaster from around “fossils” of ancient animals.
The snake and insect houses were either first or last, as they were located at the entrance. I don’t know if the kids remember these exhibits as much, but there were Gila monsters, scorpions that glowed under a black light, and rattlesnakes.
The end of a trip to the Desert Museum always felt like a triumph, having conquered the elements with every device we had. The drive home often included a trip to the McDonald’s drive up window on the fringe of civilization. It was hard work being desert explorers, but we loved it. If I could go back to Tucson for a few days, I would take the kids back to this magical place. Their longer, lankier bodies may not fit so easily in the cave, and some of that wonder of childhood would be gone, but I know that they would have fun. It was ALWAYS a good day at the Desert Museum. How many things in life are like that?
