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citrakayah
It occurs to me that, despite having gone to Arizona for New Year's and rather enjoyed myself, I haven't posted about it on here.
My grandmother (on my father's side) lives in Tucson, and the area is probably one of my favorite places to visit. I've always loved the Southwest--its culture, its history, the ecosystem. It's one of the few places with cacti, you can spot lizards and snakes fairly easily, the birds are beautiful, and if you get really lucky you can see a coyote or mountain lion.
Which I didn't, but we didn't do much hiking due to it being freaking cold. In Arizona. Granted, it's the middle of winter and Tucson is at elevation, but it's still freaking Arizona.
Drive over to the Kansas City Airport was fairly easy, and so was the plane trip. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and lost a rather nice leather iPad case which belonged to my father. He was understandably irritated, I felt bad, et cetera. Thankfully they still make the things, but--guilty!
The hotel was pretty nice, emphasis on was. It's fallen into disrepair somewhat--Internet and phones weren't working well at all--but it used to be fantastic, and apparently they're doing remodeling. They also have an orange grove, with oranges one can pick from the tree.
Went to the Arizona-Sonoron Desert Museum. This was lots of fun--it's basically a combination botanical garden, museum, and zoo. Not everyone was out, on account of it being so cold I was wearing a jacket (which I usually do, but I'll get to that later), but a fair number of exhibits are indoors in heated areas, and I did get to see coatis and coyotes roaming around. Both of them have exhibits that use this nearly invisible mesh; visible if you're close to it but harder to see from far away.
They also had this nice mesh/glass combination exhibit that was basically a massive, enclosed river tank. Had fish, frogs, toads, lizards, birds, that sort of stuff. Only saw some fish and frogs, but there were a lot of frogs, and it was cold.
I have photos, I'll upload them later.
We also went to Biosphere 2, which was much nicer than I remember it... even if I'm kind of disappointed that it's no longer a miniature world and is a living laboratory these days.
My grandmother (on my father's side) lives in Tucson, and the area is probably one of my favorite places to visit. I've always loved the Southwest--its culture, its history, the ecosystem. It's one of the few places with cacti, you can spot lizards and snakes fairly easily, the birds are beautiful, and if you get really lucky you can see a coyote or mountain lion.
Which I didn't, but we didn't do much hiking due to it being freaking cold. In Arizona. Granted, it's the middle of winter and Tucson is at elevation, but it's still freaking Arizona.
Drive over to the Kansas City Airport was fairly easy, and so was the plane trip. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and lost a rather nice leather iPad case which belonged to my father. He was understandably irritated, I felt bad, et cetera. Thankfully they still make the things, but--guilty!
The hotel was pretty nice, emphasis on was. It's fallen into disrepair somewhat--Internet and phones weren't working well at all--but it used to be fantastic, and apparently they're doing remodeling. They also have an orange grove, with oranges one can pick from the tree.
Went to the Arizona-Sonoron Desert Museum. This was lots of fun--it's basically a combination botanical garden, museum, and zoo. Not everyone was out, on account of it being so cold I was wearing a jacket (which I usually do, but I'll get to that later), but a fair number of exhibits are indoors in heated areas, and I did get to see coatis and coyotes roaming around. Both of them have exhibits that use this nearly invisible mesh; visible if you're close to it but harder to see from far away.
They also had this nice mesh/glass combination exhibit that was basically a massive, enclosed river tank. Had fish, frogs, toads, lizards, birds, that sort of stuff. Only saw some fish and frogs, but there were a lot of frogs, and it was cold.
I have photos, I'll upload them later.
We also went to Biosphere 2, which was much nicer than I remember it... even if I'm kind of disappointed that it's no longer a miniature world and is a living laboratory these days.
