3/3

The day after our hike up Kelso Dunes, we made a stop at Amboy Crater on the way to Joshua Tree National Park. It seemed everyone was exhausted and more lackluster than usual. Amboy Crater had some pretty neat lizards and even a Desert Lily.

Joshua Tree National Park had, to no one's surprise, quite a lot of Joshua Trees. While we didn't spend a huge amount of time here, we saw a few lizards, a new mammalaria, and a black tailed jackrabbit!

That night, we drove into Anza-Borrego and enjoyed walking some trails and climbing some rocks. We saw a chuckwalla (a very neat lizard) hiding in between some of the rocks we were attempting to climb. The sunset from this vantage point was absolutely stunning.

The showers in the Anza-Borrego field station did not have the most impressive water pressure, but that didn't matter after two days of running around in the outdoors with no showers. I felt clean for the first time in days.

The next day we took quite a walk through Anza-Borrego State Park. It paid off though when Norm let out a phrase of excitement and pointed at the mountains, looking through his binoculars. Desert Bighorn Sheep. Two of them. With the zoom lens on my camera, I was able to take a decent look at them. They blend in so effortlessly with their backdrop that, from afar, all you could possibly hope to see is the dash of movement across the rock face. We had spotted them.

The next day's drive took us to Gila Bend, Arizona. We see our first Saguaro Cactuses. I had no real concept of how massive these plants truly were until that moment. In the fading sunlight, we explore a rocky hillside with our blacklights in the hopes of finding scorpions. They are small, they look exactly like the ground they sit on, buy my god how brilliantly they glow under a black light! We hear a scream of excitement and start running in the direction of the noise. We all scramble to take a look, convinced that this would be the only scorpion we'd see. We spread out with our lights, and suddenly there they are. We find somewhere around ten scorpions, a mix of desert bark scorpions and hairy scorpions. I could barely tell them apart, but I was overjoyed to be seeing these beauties.

The next day's stop, Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, ended up being my favorite day of the trip. I mentioned how massive the Saguaro Cactus can be, but this park was essentially a forest of Saguaros. I have always loved cacti, I have many at home, I have multiple shirts featuring saguaros and other desert scenery. It was almost overwhelming to be surrounded by the absolute majesty that was the abundance of saguaros. I decided I would hug one, no matter what it took. Turns out, all it took was a long sleeve t-shirt and a very careful, slow grasp. There must have been thousands of saguaros and none of them looked the same, it never got old to turn my head in a new direction and see more of these magnificent plants.

We woke up early the next day to visit the Botanical Gardens of Phoenix, AZ. I knew at this point that we were in Arizona, but it occurred to me that at some point, I had stopped noticing what state we were in. To be completely honest, it didn't matter to me. I was in the desert with the best group of people I could have asked for and our legitimate geographical location was inconsequential. We were able to visit the herbarium and the greenhouses; I was in constant awe of the care and determination put into the logging of these plant species; of the number of succulents, cacti, and other plants.

The drive to Sedona, AZ left me feeling rather carsick, but seeing Owl Creek and the snow capped mountains was worth the moments of unease and discomfort. We saw a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, which was a fairly rare spot. We debated between that and the Western Screech Owl, but the field guide showed darker eyes for the Ferruginous owl and yellow eyes for the Screech. We had definitely seen darker eyes so we knew the answer.

That night we drove into Flagstaff. There was snow on the ground and I was beyond delighted. This, obviously, turned into snowball fight almost immediately. After a delicious dinner at Dara Thai, we returned to the hotel and made use of the sauna in this chilly weather. As it turns out, spending time in the jacuzzi and then laying down in the snow is an honestly transcendental experience.

The next day we awoke early to get to the Grand Canyon. And howdy doody, was it Grand. Another snowball fight broke out, this time involving everyone. With no major casualties, we explore the canyon. We see Elk! I had not expected to see any, but there were around 5-7 right along the sides of a bus path! We are able to get closer than we probably should have (for the record, elk can get aggressive and you should NOT approach them) and score some sweet pics. Everywhere we are seeing birds, ground squirrels, Abbert's squirrels, and even a group of Mule Deer! I had never seen the Grand Canyon before and it was pure elation to end the trip on such a high (6,804 ft elevation) note. It's beginning to hit me that our trip is coming to a close and I begin to take deeper breathes and drag my feet slower, not entirely because of the extreme change in altitude.

That night back in Las Vegas I watch my classmate win over $50 on a slot machine. Slot machines are random chance and Mary got lucky. I think about how lucky I am to have gotten to spend almost two weeks on an amazing adventure that I never could have dreamed would go so well. I kept thinking, "wow, I'm learning so much," and reminding myself that, oh yeah, this is a class. I've never liked every person on any given class trip, but I loved all twelve of my fellow desert adventurers. And after watching four more people lose at slots, I didn't feel the need to bet anything because I had spent all of my luck on this incredible chunk of my lifetime.

That sounds so cliche I want to scream, but I have a lot of feelings and no excuses.

Posted on March 25, 2018 06:55 AM by sailor149