From New York to Arizona: Rounding out the First Month

Week 3: The Perseids and the International Wildlife Museum

This hawk has been hanging out in the apartment complex

Monday - Friday has started to become routine for the two of us. The school year has started for Susan, so she's now on a normal schedule, and I've started to get work. At night, it's been too hot to take the dogs to the dog park, so we've been taking them on a walk around the complex after we get back from working out at the gym.

Cute dragonfly outside the apartment

Saturday night was the Perseids meteor shower. Being new to the area, I wasn't sure where we could go to watch them, but I remembered something about how people go up into one of the mountain passes to the West to watch sunsets. So, we headed up Starr Pass and parked in the parking lot at the trail head. I climbed out the sunroof and watched for meteors while Susan decided to stay on the ground. The shower wasn't at it's peak, but it was close, so I would see a couple a minute. It's the most I've ever seen in a short amount of time, so I was happy!

The next day we headed out to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, but when we arrived it was well over 100 degrees and the park map did not include much of anything that would be inside and out of the sun. Instead of wasting a trip out into the desert, we decided to check out the International Wildlife Museum that we had passed along the way. Thankfully, the entire thing was indoors and super cheap. It ended up being a large collection of stuffed/mounted animals. I especially liked the room of giant cats!! Even though I knew they weren't alive, it was a little freaky reaching out to pet them!


Tiger at the International Wildlife Museum


Leopard at the International Wildlife Museum

Zebra at the Int't Wildlife Museum

Snowy Owl at the Int'l Wildlife Museum

So tall you can walk under him!

This ostrich looked really pissed

Fact or Myth? The Centaur or Tymfi!

Week 4: The Biosphere

This week I had the most work to-date in Arizona and I met a lot of really nice clients. Susan and I kept up our routine of heading to the gym after work and then walking the dogs around the complex. Friday night, Melanie invited me to a showing of "Dark Crystal" at the Loft Cinema. It's like the Little and they have "Cult Classics" every Friday and Saturday nights for only $6. Next weekend is the "Labyrinth" and I'm really excited to see that on the big screen!

Awesome clouds during the monsoon season

Saturday we headed out to the Biosphere. I was really interested in checking it out but the visit really took the excitement out of it. Sadly, a lot of the animals that had been in there in the beginning have died off for various reasons. (The animal that is highest on the food chain anywhere in there is the cockroach.) A lot of the "environments" were smaller than expected and/or we were so overgrown that you couldn't make out much of them, and the most exciting experiment they are currently running has to do with erosion. The most interesting part of the visit was the tarantula that we saw on the walk from the visitor center to the Biosphere. Anyway, point of the story, do NOT spend $20 per person to go there. You can check out my pictures below and read Wikipedia for free and save 1.5 hours of your life for something else.