By 8:50 a.m. I was fighting to stay awake, because you have to stay on your toes in the Holtz-wagon. Unfortunately, I lost the battle with sleep and was out for a good half hour. Shortly after I woke up we entered the town of Strawberry located in the Tonto National Forest, beautifully wooded and mountainous section of Arizona.

Some time after leaving Strawberry, with the Mogollon Rim at our backs, we stopped by the side of the road for a little Òsong and danceÓ (a.k.a. geology lesson). Not being in a national park, we were able to drop some acid, which was not as colorful as it might sound to some. Dr. Merck picked up a stone and added a few drops of acid to it to test its composition. If it had been limestone calcium carbonate would have mixed with the acid and the rock would have fizzed. Since there was no visible change it was concluded that, based on that test, the rock was either sandstone or hematite. Dr. Merck and Dr. Holtz explained that we were passing down through a layer of stone called the Tonto group, which is a layer of Tapeats sandstone dating from the middle Cambrian period, about 520 million years ago. At this point in our journey we were getting into the Central Highlands, which had been subject to rapid changes in its geology and vegetation.

After getting back into the vans and getting underway again we identified some third degree conglomerates and fourth degree alluvium, sediments shedding off the mountain and building up on the side of the road. We soon entered the Great Basin conifer woodland, characterized by the presence of junipers and scrub oaks. After a pit stop in Payson we came out of the woodland ecosystem and entered the semi-desert Grassland, where we promptly got lost again. On our second impromptu scenic tour of the day we passed some metaconglomerate and quartzite rock formations, which I can only describe as gigantic and beautiful. The high point of this detour was a dike cutting through a valley that we were fortunate to pass twice (as we made a u-turn farther down the road and came back around).

We took route 188 through the Arizona Upland Sonoran Desert scrub. We passed the Roosevelt Lake, which we were pleased to see actually had water in it, since we had previously come to the conclusion that the any word denoting a body of water in Arizona was a misnomer. On this leg of our journey Dr. Holtz explained columnar jointing to me, as I was having trouble identifying it when it was right in front of me. I couldnÕt put it into words, but I have a nice little illustration that will help me identify the formation in the future. I also learned how to identify igneous rock by the way it weathers. It was explained that igneous rocks weather into boulders because they do not have any preferred orientation when they form. By contrast, metamorphic rocks tend to weather along their planes.

We arrived in Globe at about 12:30 and shortly thereafter stopped for gas. We decided to take that time for a lunch break, and upon asking a local where we could find some picnic tables we were directed to a picnic area directly across the street. Lunch was nice because it was one of the first outdoor meals we had without having to huddle against the cold.

An hour and a half later we were back on the road and our next stop was the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. We saw an amazing variety of flora and fauna. One of the first fauna sightings was of a couple Inca Doves and a hummingbird (which I hadnÕt realized were so tiny). There were several different types of cacti, including multiple types of cholla. There were also several Murphy agave plants (a.k.a. century plants) that were absolutely humongous. The next fauna sighting was of an Uta, a common lizard in Arizona, and a little later we came across a Fence lizard. Hyojung was kind enough to take my picture in front of a prickly pear cactus from the Galapagos Islands. This does not sound very extraordinary, except that from the ground to about three feet up it looked like a normal tree. The island prickly pears had adapted this feature to protect themselves from being eaten by tortoises. Another interesting plant was the lechugilla, or horse crippler, an agave whose spines contain digitalis, a crippling toxin also found in nightshade.

Later in the day we came across a little pond that was home to an interesting array of birds. We spotted a full family of coots, one of which was defending its territory from a pied-billed grebe. We also spotted a yellow-rumped warbler, or "butter butt," a black-chinned hummingbird, a turkey vulture, a mocking bird, and a cardinal; but the coup dÕetat was a sighting of a vermilion flycatcher. This was especially exciting for Dr. Merck, a long-time bird watcher, who had never seen one before. It was almost like watching a kid in a very big candy store.

After our hike around the arboretum we stopped in the Interpretive Center to look at the cacti growing in the green house. We were lucky to be there when many of the cacti were flowering and I got some nice pictures.

At about 4:45 p.m. we were back on the road and headed for Tucson, spotting a roadrunner on the way. We passed Picacho ("Pikachu") mountain and the Catalina Mountains, and finally arrived in the city around 7:00 p.m. After a short break and a good dinner we went to bed in preparation to do it all over again the next day.

Day 5 - Saguaro National Monument West
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