After our short visit to Saguaro National Park we decided to spend that night with our friends house, south of Tucson. We exited out the south entrance of the park and immediately saw signs for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum just a few miles down the highway.
Our friends had suggested we visit it, but we were a little reluctant. We prefer to be outdoors with nature rather than inside buildings, like museums. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, however, is not your typical museum. It’s a combination of natural history museum, botanical garden, aquarium, and zoo. And, most of it is outdoors!
From the entrance and buildings at the top, you can meander through exhibits and out into the desert below.
A realistic looking underground exhibit enables you to experience life in a cave. You can even try on a big pair of bat ears. I was laughing so hard trying to capture the moment before Tom changed his mind that I missed the point of the bat ears. I think it was demonstrating how big our ears would have to be for us to hear as good as a bat, but I'm not sure.
The outdoor paths lead through various habitats including Mountain Woodland, Desert Grasslands, and Cat Canyon where you can view resident animals including mountain lions, wolves, and javelina.
The beautiful wood, paved and dirt paths are surrounded by desert plants as they meander through botanical gardens.
We were only at the Arizona-Senora Desert Museum for a few hours but could easily spend an entire day. This is yet another reason for us to revisit the Tucson area!
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