Saguaro National Park

-
If I say "cactus," I can almost guarantee that mentally you picture a saguaro, probably in the shape of the one on the sign below. These are the iconic cacti of the southwest, but they grow in a relatively small area.

Saguaro National Park consists of two regions, one directly east of Tucson and one directly west. I'm not 100% certain it's accurate, but I overheard someone saying it used to only be the east region but then the cacti started dying out on that side (due to the government allowing cattle grazing in the early 1900s), so they looked around for an area that still had abundant saguaros and found it west of Tucson. True? I don't know, but it's plausible. Saguaros grow only a few inches in their first five years, so cattle grazing could easily wipe out an entire generation. Regardless, the population of saguaros in the east region has stabilized now that the cattle are gone.

We visited this park a total of three times, two in the east and one in the west. Both regions are similar: a ~10 mile scenic loop is the main attraction. Each loop has a number of overlook pullouts and a single, short paved nature trail. Why did we go to the east region twice? Because we wanted to bring some guests we had, Nana and Gramps!

My parents came to visit us while we were in Tucson for 5 weeks, and we couldn't let them come see us without taking them to a park.

By the way, remember the cactus you pictured at the top, the one Julie is mimicking in the picture? We saw precisely zero with that exact shape.

Location: Saguaro National Park, Arizona, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food

-
Image
As we traveled the country, we tried to experience local culture. We didn't have much time in each location, so we thought that one of the best ways to do this quickly was to partake of local foods. Therefore, in addition to our National Park theme , we also had a "local food" theme. As we hit each state, we ate a food famous in that state. Just an example; we didn't go off of this map We quickly came to realize that this is a very subjective endeavor. Before we started, I ignorantly assumed that each state would have one or two "famous" foods, making the selection process easy. Not true. First of all, most of what shows up on lists of foods by state is hardly "famous." It's more like "foods you will definitely find in this state and may or may not find elsewhere." Some states have a dozen such foods or more. Many states have the same "famous" foods (there is a lot of crossover with fruit and beef). Second, much of this food...
Read more

My Family's House (by Jordan)

-
It all started out with our adoption. We've been waiting for about 3 years to adopt a child. When my dad put the house on Zillow someone's wife wanted to buy it in 10 minutes. But the husband promised his wife a pool. So they didn't buy the house. There were a few others that I can't remember. But finally Melissa and Tim stepped up! They bought the house. We left March fifth. Tim and Melissa have a daughter named Brook. We are on March sixth now and we are enjoying our time at Poinsett State Park!
Read more

Lassen Volcanic National Park

-
Image
We have officially entered the Pacific Ring of Fire. Well, we've technically been in it for the past few months while in California, but none of the parks we've been to have been related... until now. Starting with Lassen, we're about to hit multiple parks built around volcanos. Other than Mt. Saint Helens and that one in Hawaii that never stops, I would have been hard pressed to name another volcano that erupted in this country... ever. But sure enough, Mount Lassen erupted numerous times between 1915 and 1921, doing quite a bit of damage to the surrounding area (there is a section near the mountain called "the devastated area," which is humorous because it's all grown back and looks perfectly normal now). We've had remarkably good weather for our park days, but as you can probably tell from the picture above, that luck ran out at Lassen. I'm guessing a lot of it had to do with us being at elevation, but the entire day was chilly and foggy. If we look...
Read more