Saguaro National Park: January 2023
I've lived in Arizona at this point for 9.5 years. I've seen a lot of cacti and been to a lot of places with cacti. Saguaro national park is in Tuscon, about two hours southeast of Phoenix. I've been to Tuscon too, so I wasn't expecting to learn too much from this excursion. I got to explore this one with my friend Emmery who was nice enough to drive us down, so I was definitely looking forward to that. On the way, we hear something outside the regular noise of the road. What can only be described as metal scraping on road from the bottom of our car. Not good. Turns out nothing was here, so we continued on. You win this round ghost hanger.
But that's the nice thing about not knowing everything, in the end you find that you walk away with something more than when you arrived. Even in January the park feels dry but there's a special kind of life to it. Even the cacti that looked like pineapples seemed like they could kill a man at any moment. They say pressure builds diamonds, but heat builds cactus, which I think are even stronger. How does something, several somethings, grow and thrive in such an environment? I get overheated looking at my food in the microwave... Major props to my pricks out there.
Another unexpected joy of the park was the wildlife we were able to catch a glimpse of. We stop at most of the lookout areas and starts to trailheads to explore. A little further in from the main road, Emmery sees a set of deer in the distance. Now, I'm a city girl, so there aren't many animals I've seen in real life, except for New Yorkers. What a cool experience. They were maybe 50(ish?) feet away roaming through tall bushes and surprisingly, not as skittish as I thought they'd be. They definitely saw us and moved on slowly, but to think they're able to survive in environments like AZ in the summer, that blows my mind.
But that's not all. Now, everyone's seen Looney Tunes, but for someone who's lived in Arizona a while, I've never seen most of your desert dwellers. Scorpions, coyotes, you know. That's right, enter roadrunner. What a beauty. As we were heading towards the exit of the park, Emmery sees this guy off the side of the road. This girl must have 20/20 vision because I never would've noticed! This is why we have speed limits folks: 1) so we can see cool creatures, 2) to slow down once and a while and 3) to keep guys like this safe. After about 72 attempts of getting a good photo, I snap this one. Meep-meep.
Even though I've seen them a million times, I can't help but think "man, what a beautiful place."
The last thing that really stuck out to me (get it?) about this place was it's history.
Every national park is chock full of information on the history of the land, especially with previous and current inhabitants. One piece that grabbed me by the hand was the population of Saguaro cacti. The image below doesn't look like it has much in it, right? That's right, and the reason is tragic. The title on the overlook sign we come across asks "Where have all the Saguaros gone?". We read on and while comparing with the photos from decades past from the 1930's, 60's and 80's where the decline of the Saguaros in this area has declined dramatically. This was due to what's known as the "cactus blight" due to two major cold fronts in the 30's and 60's that cacti are not able to survive should temps drop below 20 degrees. According to the park, it looks like the numbers are on the uptick more recently, so the pricks are here to stay :)
Here is where I have fond memories of getting to know a friend, and the place I live better.
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