13334Day 1 – Fly to Arizona The flight was good. The two hour stopover in Dallas gave us time to eat and relax a bit before getting back on the plane. I had planned to go to Beatty’s Ranch in the afternoon, but it wasn’t to be. The car rental took much longer than expected, and by the time we got to Sierra Vista three hours after landing at 2pm it was too late to do anything but eat and crash. I enjoyed the flight over, but we had a little rough weather coming in so John didn’t enjoy it at all. Bonus: Sierra Vista has Little Ceasar’s pizza!
13337 13340Day 2 – Beatty’s Ranch and Ash Canyon B&BI woke up at 5am thinking it was 9am. Sux0rs. John woke up only a little after me, so we decide to gt breakfast and head out early. The air was quite chilly even at 7am, and the mountains were wonderful. Beatty’s was packed with hummingbirds, too many to keep track of. We were there for about 3 hours and must have seen at least 300 different birds. Ash Canyon B&B was nice, mostly because of the host (Mary-Jo). She talkedto us, helped ID hummingbirds.. etc. Her place wasn’t as swarming with birds as Beatty’s, but it was much more personable to be there. We also got there just as it was getting hot out, so that may account for the lack of birds.
13343Day 3 – Ramsey Canyon Preserve Ramsey Canyon would have been much better if we were avid birders of all types. As it was, the hummingbird section was the smallest and fewest attended of all. The feeders were far away, the birds were few. All in all it wasn’t inpressive. The best shots I got of the day were actually of some deer, not hummingbirds. We went to the Sierra Vista Mall looking for gifts. I got a few things and a small glass hummingbird necklace for myself.
13313Day 4 – Arizona Sonora Desert Museum The road getting to this place is really scary. It winds though the mountains, at one point you look out your door and it’s a 100ft drop down. Yikes! Not my idea of fun, but John really enjoyed the drive there. It was hot when we got there and it just got hotter. It was also Day in the Life, so you can see the entry here. Th hummingbird avaiary was actually wonderful. The only ay it could have been better was if it was cooler. I sweated through a memory card in tere and called it quits. We wandered through what rest of the park we could make it through, but it was just so hot that we were miserable by 3pm. We leaft to check into the hotel afer buying some postcards for people back home.
13322Day 5 – Pima Air and Space Museum Hot hot hot. This place was dusty and filled with old airplanes. John’s dad would have loved it, and I think we’d have enjoyed it more had he been there to tell usfunny stories abuut the planes e worked on in the war. I did find the Blue Angel plane and the Harrier (made the awesomest in True Lies). We were dissapointed to learn that John’s favorite plane (The Warthog) was in restoration and not on display.
13328 13349Day 6 – Reid Park Zoo and Tucson Botanical Gardens Reid Park Zoo has to be the smallest zoo I’ve ever seen. It took us less than two ours to go all the way around it slowly. That said, it also has to be one of the most well-done zoos I’ve ever been to. It was shaded niely, well laid out, designed with the viewer in mind and featured some great animals. This place would rival San Diego Zoo if it were larger. The only issue we had was that it was a school feild trip day there. Packed with screaming kids isn’t the best idea for a small zoo. We left there at about 11am and went directly to the Tucson Botanical Gardens. This place is also stunningly well designed. I could have done with more shade areas, but it was great for what it had. They had a few wild hummingbirds there too which I chased around for a bit, but it ultimately got too hot even for them. We left after buying a pair of awesome hummingbird socks for me.
Tomorrow we may go back to the Desert Museum to pick up some more hummingbird shots before it gets too hot. We might also go to the Zoo again and hope that it’s not filled with kids this time. Saturday we fly back home. We’ll be getting in at about 11pm EST, then driving home from Atlanta.
