Sunday, January 07, 2007

Saguaro National Monument West

There are two Saguaro National Monuments. . . one east of Tucson and one west. We had toured the east monument in the summer of 2003 when we were here, so yesterday we toured through the western section. They are not connected. The western one is in the Tucson Mountain Park and as with the eastern portion, basically just an area of mountain desert set aside for protection. There is a road (?), quite rough going, which takes you through the park with parking areas for hikers or picnicers. We drove all around one loop and stopped at one point and hiked to Signal Hill where we observed some petroglyphs which were put there hundreds of years ago. It's amazing to me they are still there.









On the way back to the car, a jack rabbit was hopping around and we got to see him, but I was too late with the camera. His ears looked 2 feet tall, although they were probably shorter. I read that the ears not only assist the rabbit with hearing well, but also help to cool the animal.
Till next time. . .
Dale

2 comments:

jocelyn said...

Cool pics! I'm jealous!

Anonymous said...

And the rabbits ears help with balance when he runs... (just another useless bit of info :-)) We have lots of close up views because they are all over the farm and western Kansas. Hope you all will come by sometime.

JanC