Goldfield and Sonoran Desert Museum with the grandkids

Holly, my daughter-in-law, didn't fly out with the boys, but came out a few days later.  She actually had a medical conference to attend, so only had 1 1/2 days to sightsee.  

For our 1/2 day, I decided to take them to Goldfield.  Neither Holly, nor Aaron, (or the grandkids) had ever been to the desert before.  So all of this was a totally new experience.

I thought the train ride might give them a panoramic view of the area and get a little history of the area at the same time.

Viewing the reconstructed town of Goldfield.  Although the entire town has been reconstructed, their actually was a gold mine and the town of Goldfield located here back during the gold boom days of the late 1800s.

Adrion likes to geocache, so I found there was one located at Goldfield, and he found it.

No pictures, but we did take the mine tour.  I found out the entire mine was dug just for the reconstruction.  Made to recreate the feel of what it was like to be underground, they have constructed it in the same manner a real mine would have been constructed and filled it with authentic mining artifacts.  Even though this mine was only about 10 feet deep, instead of 1,000, I learned more on this mine trip than most of the others I have been on, and they were real mines.  If you like trivia and history, I recommend the mine tour at Goldfield. 

I had some additional geocaches to look for on our way home.  The first 2 we couldn't find the roads to get there, but we did find two more.  I was trying to use my Garmin auto GPS and my phone and that wasn't working very well.

I just thought this was a great picture of all of us with the Superstition Mountains in the background.  Adrion is holding up a cactus needle from a Saquaro.

He couldn't get over how big they were.

The next day we headed south to Tucson and Sonoran Desert Museum.  We made it just in time for the indoor Ranger talk about the local animals.

I thought this porcupine was cute.  Wouldn't want to pet him, but he was cute.  They had a stage and the animals evidently were trained to walk across the stage, entering on one side and walking across an area which was made to look like the outdoors, with some rocks and limbs in their way.  We watched this porcupine enter and exit, but they also showed us a skunk, a parrot, a ring tailed cat, even a turtle.  Each came out, wandered around the stage and eventually wandered back off again.  

Showing off the size of a Desert Tortoise, Adrion crawls into the shell.

My favorite exhibit is the Raptor Free Flight.  Lasting about 30 minutes, you get to see three different types of raptors and get to watch them flying and seeing a demonstration.  The first was this Barn Owl.

The second was the Peregrine Falcon, but they fly so fast and don't land, so didn't get any pictures.

My favorite though, is the Harris Hawk.  Such a beautiful bird.