The Sonoran Desert Museum and Getting Cut in Half!

The past week has been a blast! We stayed at the Gilbert Ray County Campground which is only about a mile from the Sonoran Desert Museum. We went ahead and bought year passes because we went to it four times this week and will probably be able to use it next winter too. The museum is incredible! It's unlike any museum you've ever been to. There are dozens of animal exhibits, a walk-through aviary, numerous shows throughout the day and a huge manmade cave to explore! I really enjoyed the Raptor Free Flight show in which they let four Harris' hawks loose for about half an hour. We even got to see them catch a wild wood rat! The kids liked the Running Wild show where you get to see some native animals run in front of and even fly over you. What makes the animal exhibits so amazing is that instead of conforming the cage so people can see better, they conform the people to the animals! At the beaver and otter exhibits you actually go down a ramp "under water" and get to see their dens and them swimming right in front of you. At the Life on the Rocks exhibit, which features snakes and lizards, the kids got to climb through a passage that lets them see what it'd be like to be a "rock dweller". I could go on for hours. : ) Check out the link above and go!

The Gilbert Ray campground is great. It has amazing views, nice camp hosts, and great sites. Hanna and I took advantage of our big site and had a 30 minute sword fight. I'm not sure who won. If it had been real she would've lost her left leg, but I would've taken a sure fatal blow to the gut when I slipped! So that's what I get I guess. I teach Hanna everything I know about sword fighting and she cuts me in half! I've never been beat before. I guess it's a good thing though, she is on my side after all. I want someone at least as good as me to watch my back. : )