Desert Museum: Flora and Minerals

I suppose, this being the first day of the new year, I should write something deep and reflective. But I return to so much of the deep, reflective and challenging as we fly back to the Northwest today, that I think I'll continue with some things that were delightful on our visit to the Desert Museum in Arizona. Beautiful sights and experiences should be savored and remembered a few times before getting tucked away on their shelf of memory.

As you can see, the desert here is definitely green. This was the thing that surprised me the most when I first visited this part of Arizona. No wonder people love to retire here. Not only is it sunny most of the time, but there are also colors in the surroundings that are soothing to the eyes.
One enjoyable stop on the tour of the Desert Museum was "the cave." One descends into a man-made cavern with tunnels and scenarios much like we visited at Kartchner Caverns last weekend. If you like squeezing through tight spaces, you can try an alternative route, more like the tunnels cavers squeeze through.
The cave tunnel leads down into a mineral room with displays of some of the products of the earth in the state of Arizona. There's so much color in everything!
I didn't know that gypsum grows as crystals, but here's a lovely sample.
And the blue in this rock: was it cobalt? That seems to be a favorite color for window casings in the southwest-style old buildings near here, balancing off the pink or beige color of the stucco.
Once our eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight again, there were lovely specimens of the flora to view. Looks like some birds made themselves at home in this saguaro cactus.
Although I hear it's a pest, I love taking pictures of the teddy bear cholla cactus. It's so softly fuzzy-looking, although it's not at all that way if you get close to it. You want to keep your distance from this plant, sometimes referred to as the "jumping cholla." Behind this one you'll see the long spindly "branches" of the ocotillo cactus, which produces some lovely little red blooms at a certain time of the year. What certain time? I don't know. I can tell you it's not at new year's time!
There's something about that saguaro cactus that just draws your eye to it, even though there's so much more to look at in this picture. I wonder if it's the human-like form of some of the saguaro cacti?
Arizona also has some lush places with trees, waterfalls and mountain pools. This is the habitat for the beaver, which you saw in the last post.
I don't know what this cactus is called. I was so enchanted by the star-like spine arrangement; I would have named it a "Christmas star" cactus.
On the way out of the Desert Museum you pass this unusual cactus. Is it a saguaro? I don't think so. But what was it? The club-like top of the plant, which was at least twice as tall as me, was curious and picturesque.
Here's one more look at the mountains and plants in this area. If you click on the picture, you'll see all the little straight saguaro cacti standing like soldiers on the mountainside. It really is cool.
Finally, these are my favorite plants I saw all day at the Desert Museum. They are octopus agave, and I loved their graceful, wavy lines. If I were a mural painter, these would be on our bedroom wall in a scene using the Arizona colors: copper blue-green, desert reds and the sky in early morning golds.