Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park in Arizona near Tuscon consists of two separate districts on separate sides of Tuscon. We had an afternoon to visit the west side, and a morning to visit the east side in February 2017. We started with Sonora Arizona Desert Museum, which is located right outside the west side of the Saguaro National Park. The museum is not part of the national park, but I highly recommend to stop by the there.

Location

Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

The Sonora Arizona Dessert Museum has both plant and zoo exhibits. It is  a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, and a botanical garden all in one. My favorite part was to touch baby manta rays in a pool and see a mountain lion. There was also a black bear. You might think that black bears and desert doesn’t really go together, but turns out they live in desert habitats at higher elevations.

Selfie with Manta Rays at Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

Flying Bird at Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

Black Bear at Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

Duck at Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

Big Cat at Sonora Arizona Desert Museum

Saguaro WEST (Tucson Mountain District)

In Saguaro WEST we did the Bajada loop drive and stopped at few places along the road. We saw some hieroglyphs on the rocks which was fascinating. The park ranger said that the best spot for sunset is at Signal Hill off the Golden Gate Road.

Saguaro EAST (Rincon Mountain District)

The next morning we set off across Tuscon with our RV to Saguaro East as after that we were off to Las Cruces, NM. We planned to do the Cactus Forest drive in Saguaro East but unfortunately that didn’t pan out as there was no place to park the trailer and and the loop didn’t allow trailers.