Saguaro National Park

Picked up a hot girl at the airport, bundled her into the car, and took her off into the desert. Katie was quite willing of course, though I'm sure her parents were a little concerned at her flying off across the country to go holidaying with some guy that she'd known for precisely two days. We drove straight out of phoenix, to Saguaro National Park, which actually has no campground. The adjoining Tuscon Mountain Park does however, even if it's office is closed for the season. We weren't sure if this meant that it hadn't actually opened for the season yet or not. "peak season" in the desert is a bit haywire.

While walking to the toilet the next morning, I came across an old camp site, that the park had basically built around. It was an old style fire pit, with mechanical bellows, a picnic table, and a personal size pit toilet, completely and utterly surrounded by the desert plantlife. I wonder when the last ranger saw it, and how many of the current rangers even knew of it's existence.

We went and did another loop drive, with me pointing out all the cool plants that I'd learnt about the day before. Saguaro NP has way more saugaros, and no organ pipe cacti, but is basically the same otherwise. The saguaro here are all big and green and healthy. They get a bit more water here than over at Organ Pipes. At the end of our loop drive, we did a short walk out to some pictographs, as Katie had never seen any before. These were unlike any I'd seen before too, different tribal heritage presumably. Had a lovely time at the visitor center, with some extremely helpful rangers. Then we took some pictures, and headed off, into New Mexico. (via some very poor parts of tuscon first, looking for some internet access)

Katie and our house, Tuscon Mountain Park	Ocotillo after rain	Pictographs and saguaro	Typical Arizona sprawl
Classic Saguaro scene