Desert Museum

As members of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society, Steve and I get free admission to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum one summer night per year so we can ogle the minerals in the museum's vault. Then we can hang around and shine black lights on fluorescent scorpions and attend lectures where we saw hawks, a pelican, a skunk, a porcupine and a ringtail.

It was raining when we went into the lecture hall. We noticed an ironwood tree with a snaky cactus draped all over it. It had huge buds that looked just like our night-blooming cereus buds. When we came out of the lecture, the rain had stopped and the tree was covered with 48 huge blossoms. One of the museum staff said the cereus waited until the rain stopped so it wouldn't lose any of its pollen. It was a spooky sight to behold.