Sunday March 3, 2024,
Dear Diary,
I woke up at 6 a.m. I had slept really good. I wrote my blog until 7 a.m. and posted it. Then I prayed my thanksgivings and gratitudes:
- I am grateful for friends and family. Thank you for connection.
- I am grateful for the Earth. Thank you for its diversity of terrain, beauty and climates.
- I am grateful for adventures. Thank you for the enjoyment of different experiences.
Angel woke up and we got up. I made a smoothie and more juice. This time it was pineapple, kale, pear and tangelo juice. Yum! I cleaned up the kitchen and we got ready to go to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Missy was going with us and I was looking forward to spending the day with her. Little Bit couldn’t go and stayed home with Missy’s dogs.
It was a beautiful drive to the museum. We went through the mountains and the views were spectacular. I love the jagged mountain peaks covered in cacti. I was in majestic mountain bliss. Missy and I talked on the drive and got to know each other more. Since we didn’t grow up together, we had a lot of years to cover. I learned a lot about her childhood that I had no idea about and vice versa. I enjoyed conversing with her and we got along really well.
Missy got us into the museum for free since her yearly pass came with 2 free tickets. That was a nice treat! The museum was way better than I expected it to be and most of it was outside, which I liked a lot. I’m an outdoors person, I prefer to see the sky over seeing a ceiling. The first exhibit we went to was looking at reptiles and amphibians. We had fun trying to find them. Some were camouflaged or hiding, a lot of the camouflage ones blended in so well that when we found it, we realized we had been looking right at it all along. There were a lot of different varieties of rattlesnakes, I hadn’t realized there were so many varieties. The second exhibit we visited was a man made cave. We had fun exploring the cave and there was a place where you could put on bat ears. I was surprised that not only could I hear other people better but I could hear myself better. Suddenly I received an “aha” moment. I will put on my “bat ears” when listening and therefore I will remember to listen better. The third exhibit we visited, was about bones and fossils. Angel got to play in the sand and find dinosaur bones. I was starting to get hungry and as I was looking at the map, it sunk in on how big the museum was and I realized we were going to be spending most of the day here. I was glad I had brought food with us but I had left it in the car. Missy stayed with Angel while I went to the car to get my backpack with my smoothie and Angel’s lunch.
We indeed spent most of the day at the museum and still didn’t see it all. We saw a mountain lion which was huge and Mexican gray wolves (all the animals are rescues). The wolves were gorgeous. A museum volunteer was telling us about all the places in the United States that wolves used to live and are now being reintroduced to. I knew they had been reintroduced in Idaho and were established there now because that’s where I’m from and back in the 90’s when they were reintroduced in Idaho, there was a huge controversy about it. Now there are a lot more places around the United States where they are being reintroduced and personally I think it’s great.
About halfway through the museum we stopped at the “packrat playground”, which was a big indoor playground for kids. Missy and I sat and talked while Angel played on the playground. We had a great conversation and it was nice to sit and relax. We were there for quite a while, letting Angel play for a long time. I finished my smoothie and was still feeling a little bit hungry. I knew there was a restaurant close to where we would be finishing up and I hoped they had something there I could eat. I had been exercising quite a bit the past few days and was hungrier than usual. Angel had a great time playing, it was a really neat indoor playground, with tunnels and nets. There was one part of the playground that Angel was scared to do and wanted me to do it with her. There was no way I was small enough the fit through the tunnel and stairs to get there, I encouraged her to face her fear and do it herself. She went back to playing and a while later excitedly came running up saying that she had faced her fear and had gone on the part she was scared of. It feels good to face our fears and overcome them and I enjoyed seeing her excitement at doing just that.
With Missy and I feeling rested, we continued on through the museum. One of the neatest exhibits was the sting rays. Neither Angel nor I had ever petted sting rays before. They were super friendly and silky soft. We spent quite a while petting the them. We would hold our hands flat underneath the water and the sting rays would swim right to us and glide under our hands rubbing up against them. Next to the sting rays was a turtle exhibit and there was a fake turtle shell you could crawl into. Angel crawled in it and I took a picture. I thought it would be funny to crawl in it myself and have Missy take a picture of me. I could barely fit and got in it ok but had trouble getting back out. As I wiggled my way out, Missy was laughing and I was too. I’m sure it was a funny sight.
We saw so much and there were so many exhibits that it’s difficult to remember it all. We observed different varieties of fish, saw a beaver and looked at lots of different plants and birds. By the time we made it to the restaurant, I was really hungry. I looked at the menu and they had a great salad that I could eat. Yay! We sat down and ordered our food. I ordered the salad and an appetizer that had blue corn chips and a dip. I had been eating all raw, other than a piece of homemade sourdough bread Missy had made yesterday that I had eaten while we played scrabble last night. I had felt fine after eating the piece of bread but knew from past experiences that if I continued to eat cooked starches that I would start to get inflammation in my body. I was super hungry, so I ordered and ate some of the corn chips knowing that it wasn’t my best choice and being ok with that. When my salad arrived, it was big and delicious and satisfying. I love a well made big yummy salads. Salads ARE one of my best choices and a big salad always satisfies my hunger way more than I think it will.
After we ate, we looked around a gift shop and saw the hummingbird exhibit. Then we visited another gift shop where I bought some gifts. We had seen and done most everything the museum had to offer, except the desert walk and a few other things. It had been a really fun experience and I would love to go there again in the future.
On the way back to Tucson, we took a detour through the Saguaro National Park which had a lot of Saguaro’s which I learned from Missy that the “g” is pronounced like a “w”. I was glad to know that because I had been pronouncing it wrong. Missy and I chatted on the drive and when we arrived at her house Little Bit was super excited to see me. He was so excited he was screeching. We got settled in and Angel started working on a new activity book that Missy had bought for her at the museum. Around 7 p.m. Angel took a bath and Missy and I played another game of scrabble. We didn’t finish the game until almost 10 p.m. and Angel was already in bed listening to a Bobbsey Twins audiobook. This time I won scrabble.
We said our good nights and I went to bed and wrote my blog. I didn’t get to sleep until after 11 p.m. I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to go to the airport and I knew I would be tired but I would get some sleep on the plane.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria