playing hooky

Suzanne was on vacation last week and enticed me away from my desk for a couple of days to go play with her. We put in a lot of miles and traveled around the state.

On Wednesday, we drove down to Tucson and visited the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum . I'm not sure why is is called a "museum", it is actually a cross between the botanical gardens and a zoo. It was a pleasant walk through, and where else would you see a bunch of Javelinas?

There were also big horn sheep, a bear, wolves, coyotes, ocelots, snakes, racoons etc. Suzanne has some cool pictures of our day here . We also enjoyed sitting in the hummingbird aviary.

After the museum, we went to the Saguaro National Park. We asked a park ranger to suggest a hiking trail and told him we had 2 to 3 hours. He gave us an idea and we set out. We had some absolutely breathtaking views, but only after a relentless uphill hike for over an hour straight. I don't mind uphill, but I would much prefer some ups and some downs.

I saw this book in the park's visitor center. "Lizards of the American Southwest, a Photographic Field Guide". Here's the thing - it is over 500 PAGES LONG !!!!Anyway, fun day. Favorite quote of the day from Suzanne: "Hummingbirds have so much energy. They are the Chihuahuas of the Bird World!"

The next day, we took off early in the morning again and drove north. We got to the Grand Canyon by 10 a.m. and bundled up against the cold and headed out to explore a little bit. We went into the visitor's center to look at the maps and decide where we wanted to go. We headed out to the nearest overlook and started snapping pictures. We basically spent the whole day doing this:

We took the rim trail which goes, obviously, right along the rim. So we walked for hours with breathtaking views right at our side.

I have to post this picture, because Suzanne bought the most awesome lizard shirt. Isn't it cool?
At the end of the day, we added up the sections of trail we walked and calculated about 4.5 miles. I would have guessed more, but still not a bad day for exercise. All in all, she and I walked about 25 miles in the last 6 days.

Favorite Suzanne quote of the day: In the Visitor's Center before we started out: "Now we need to find the rim trail. I'm pretty sure it's not in here, let's go outside."