It’s the new year of
2001. We arrive mid-morning, sunny but cool enough to give us an excuse to wear
the recently gifted winter clothes we received for Christmas (though in the
afternoon sun, we’d be shedding them and lapping up ice cream). Everyone is
here. My mom, dad, sister, brother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, two nieces,
nephew, husband, and daughter surround me—I push my one-year-old son in a
stroller ahead of me.
If you’re keeping
track, that’s three generations—with that comes differing generational
mindsets, schedules, and interests. It proves challenging to bring everyone
together. Thank goodness it’s easy to know what to do when they arrive.
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a refreshing desert escape with the
open-air freedom to explore the high desert and stare straight into the eyes of
the region’s wilder residents.
Though, to be honest,
“museum” just doesn’t seem to cover it. The Desert Museum (the local nickname)
is several attractions that focus on the surroundings that surround you; an
outdoor campus that embraces the Sonoran Desert’s open and unpretentious
atmosphere. It’s a place that captures my family’s spirited interests.
A family outing
With a group like
ours, it’s important for everyone to feel like they have the freedom to
explore, and since the museum is laid out in one main loop with smaller,
contained loops attached, it’s easy to spread our wings amongst the many
exhibits while still spending time together.
At first we stay
together, making the ever-popular reptile room our first stop. While most zoos’
reptiles stay behind glass, the Desert Museum prefers to be off-the-beaten-path
by occasionally letting visitors observe a diamondback rattler or a beaded Gila
monster out of their cage, up close and personal. My lovesick nephew (a surly
teen missing his girlfriend 1,200 miles away), however, adores the creatures
and thankfully finds a remedy for his affliction when a docent invites us to
pet a beautiful king snake. Meanwhile my father (nearly 70 yet still an avid
hiker) reminds us of the rhyme to distinguish between slithering friend or foe:
if white (or yellow) touch red, you’re dead.
Back on the main loop,
we soon bottleneck into a dark, artificial cave that feels like the real
thing—it’s dim, cool, and damp, and different paths lead you farther in and
deeper below. We pass a side tunnel with an experiential detour warning of low
ceilings, steep climbs, rough footings and extremely tight passages. The kids
are energized about a cave adventure. My mother, father, one-year-old son, and
I, on the other hand, tell the rest of our group, “You go ahead; we’ll meet you
on the other side.”
Reuniting in the
mineral gallery, my daughter, attracted to things that glitter, selects a large
specimen of calcite as her favorite and begs her doting grandmother: “Can I
have it, grammy, please?” Just outside, the rest of us enjoy the warm sun and
watch the children dig in the sand for dinosaur bones, speculating who might
grow up to become geologists, paleontologists, or archeologists.
Anxious to visit one
of my favorite exhibits, we head to the Desert Grassland to see gophers
sunning. I love that the gophers can almost always be seen here, attentively
watching with an interest and curiosity equal to our own. It’s almost like
we’re on exhibit for them. My one-year-old coos and points excitedly, surely
believing they are cuddly, stuffed animals come to life.
At every station
throughout the museum, our youngest family members compete to be first to spot
the obscured animals in their near-natural habitats—a pack of sly coyotes and
snorting javelina along the Desert Loop Trail; the elusive ocelot or George the
mountain lion lying in the grotto in Cat Canyon; the furry, black bear and the
silver wolf stalking behind the Mexican Pine-Oak in the Mountain Woodland area.
Our youngsters excitedly race to stamp animal prints in an ASDM booklet as we
parents struggle to keep up and keep our eyes on them!
Driving home, I ask my
lovesick nephew what was his favorite thing, and without hesitation he
proclaims, “Petting the snake. And also the hummingbirds. They’re right there.
Whizzing by like black-hawk helicopters.” Then, his lovesick look returns, “I
only wish Jessica was here to see it with me,” he groans.
Back to the present
A flash of fluorescent
pink swishes right past my face and I hear a hum in my left ear. Young and old,
we crane, shift, and move our necks every which way to catch sight of the
hummingbirds zooming around the Hummingbird Aviary. We freely roam with them
(at a much slower speed) in their bustling metropolis, and it feels like we’re
exploring a natural habitat—not an outdoor museum. It’s no wonder that
the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is one of the top 10 museums in the
country.
Despite the passing of
15 years, the free surroundings are much the same, but the perspective is
different. For one, it’s spring and the weather is as refreshing as the
wide-open spaces of the outdoor museum. Also, we’ve aged. My once-fit father
opts for the comfort of a motorized cart—attended by my thirty-something nephew
and his fiancé. Nevertheless, we slide right back into the same behaviors as
our group scatters to seek out what interests us most.
Just as they did back
then, each family member finds a different area to explore. My father and niece
(both artists) appreciate the gallery, where artistic expression captures the
essence of freedom that the Tucson desert inspires. My desert-dwelling daughter
satisfies her yearn for the ocean in the aquarium, where the Sea of Cortez
comes to life.
The Life on the Rocks
exhibit reveals not only what is found on rocky slopes, but also what lurks
below. As I peer into the crevices for centipedes, spiders, and scorpions, I
feel something crawling on me. Creeped out, I frantically swat at the sensation
only to find my jokester son, now a teenager, letting his fingers do the
walking across my back.
Thanks to our
digitally connected world, my son, unlike his cousin of years earlier, isn’t
missing his girlfriend—he’s Facetiming her along the way. In the cave, the
girls—now young women—pose with giant bat ears and immediately post pictures to
Instagram. Soon, I find myself and my father the subject of another photo op at
the gopher exhibit—the girls position each of us between a pair of vulture
wings, and giggle as they share the photo on Facebook for all our friends to
see. Even the otters are tweeting, as they trigger motion-sensitive cameras
that post photos to their Twitter account!
To cap the evening,
instead of ice cream, we reunite to enjoy a fine dinner at the museum’s
Ocotillo Café. Our conversation is lively, sharing adventures from the day mixed
with a few memories from past visits—did you know a barrel cactus always faces
southward…how about when we chatted with the artist on exhibit … remember when
he draped a snake around his neck… my vulture photo has surpassed 100 likes…
As we stroll to the
parking lot, I ask my eldest nephew as I had 15 years before, “What was your
favorite part?” He’s not as quick to reply this time.
“The raptor
free-flight demonstration was amazing, but really it was all great. And just
being together again.”
His reply makes me
smile.
“We should come here
every time I visit,” he says. “I mean, I can’t wait to bring my own kids
someday.”
I nod, knowing this
will be an easy promise to keep.
Click here to link to published piece.
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