3/9 Back at Sonoran Desert Museum

I've been really busy with end-of-semester responsibilities, so not much time for posting, but I wanted to post a few more photos of the Sonoran Desert Museum.  I was here back in February, but it was a chilly, grey day.  I was back at Gilbert Ray Campground for a few days and it was a little warmer and less rainy, so I rode my bike the two miles down the road to the museum for another visit.  

Part of this mostly outdoors museum is heavily landscaped, and parts of it are more natural looking, but both parts get plants added and subtracted.  This is looking out southeast across the valley in the distance.  

This guy caught my eye as I was walking on one of the paths.  

 It might be a desert spiny lizard. 

 Way in the back there is a mountain lion under a small tree.

And a Mexican grey wolf snoozing in another area.  

Actually, there were two of them. They were a lot larger than I thought they would be, although you cannot tell from this photo. 

And some prairie dogs.  This museum only has wildlife that is local to Arizona. 

There are enough paths in this place that you could easily find a place without other people. 

 This is the entrance to the cactus garden.  The next few photos are of this garden within a garden.

 I found a remada in the cactus garden and sat here for quite a while.

This is an extremely rare crested saguaro.  They occur when a virus attacks a sajuaro and causes this strange growth.  They are worth tens of thousands of dollars, but like all saguaros are protected.  Here is an article explaining them in more detail and showing more examples:  https://media.azpm.org/master/doc/crestedsaguaro/

So, after about four hours of wandering around, I headed back to my campground on my bike.  Nice scenery, but the road has absolutely no shoulder, so I was at the mercy of of traffic.  Made it back OK, however.