Botanical Garden Flashlight Night

Violet and I had an excellent opportunity to get to go to the Desert Botanical Garden for their Flashlight tour. This is open to anyone but Violet was getting to do this with Girl Scouts. They had different stations set up throughout the garden and we could visit them as well as the other places. We arrived at 7 pm, just before the sunset, but it was still quite hot outside, around 107° f, and our first stop was at the drawing with glow-in-the-dark chalk. They had buckets of chalk and asked the kids to make something desert related on the black cloth. Violet decided to draw a quick saguaro cactus. Then we strolled through an area that had some great cactus called espostoa nana, which had dense white hair that grows on it, it is almost tempting to touch that but I think you would quickly come to regret that choice.

Our next stop was, thankfully in an air-conditioned room, where she was looking at different plans under microscopes and trying to guess which each one was. Then we both learned about how mesquite trees have so many helpful options from creating pitch paint, which we painted fun designs onto some pottery, all the to the seed pots being ground up to be made into flour, which tastes like cinnamon and a hint of chocolate. Now Violet keeps asking if we can get some mesquite flour to make pancakes! We learned about the saguaro cactus and how birds will peck away at them until they create a hole and then that hole will become calloused and they can make a nest in that spot. They also told us about how the saguaro generally starts growing arms once they are between 50-70 years old.

One of our favorite things was they had a telescope set up on a mountain that anyone could come and look through. It was a nice and powerful telescope that they had pointed at the moon and you could see the craters. When Violet went up to look she said, “WOW!!” loudly and exuberantly and the lady said, “That is the type of reaction we are looking for and exactly why we do this!” On our walk back out this was the thing that she talked about! We made a quick stop to check out her saguaro glowing in the black light and went home to cool ourselves off.

Since this is something that anyone can do I would highly recommend checking out the Flashlight Night at the Botanical Garden, I just wouldn’t do it in the middle of the summer heat!

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Saguaro National Park

What is on your list of places and things to do? Think of one of those things that you always want to do, no matter how many times you make a new list of things, but that one thing is always there that you want to do? One of my top things is going to the National Parks, the dream is to get to them all but one step at a time, I dream of just be standing in and amongst all the glory that is nature and that has been set aside so that this beauty is preserved for all to see.

Well, last weekend my husband, Bryce, and I went to Tucson, Arizona on an adventure and because I have been talking about wanting to go to Saguaro National Park forever, we spent the afternoon hiking, taking pictures, and becoming park members! (So all the parks within driving distance watch out because here we come!) 

We didn’t have as long to spend at Saguaro National Park as I would have liked but since it is only a couple of hours away I certainly plan on going back before it starts to heat up again. This was the perfect time of year to go where we could walk around and enjoy being completely surrounded by nature. Walking the path where there wasn’t another voice around and you could just hear the wind and feel the sun on your back.

There is so much to see and so much to learn about the park and the saguaro, in general, that this time around I just soaked up the beauty of the park. When we got home my daughter, Violet, shared some fun facts from her class last year.

Fun facts:

• Saguaros live to be around 125-175 years old

• Saguaros start to produce flowers around 35 years old

• The arms of saguaros generally start to grow around the age of 50-70

So, where is that place you dream of going to? I would love to add more places to go to my long list of places I want to travel.

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Bryce and I at Saguaro National Park

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We are easily amused!