There we were traveling along in our caravan when the back of the Holtz Wagon fell off! The people in the Holtz Wagon didn't notice, of course (one would expect this as they are not that bright on the whole). The poor Holtz Wagon was falling apart right in front of our eyes. The stray piece of the van door in the middle of the road caused a big commotion, during which Dr. Merck's vehicle got lost trying to take a detour around the rogue debris and then spent hours circling Tucson until the Shaw Van mercifully saved it.

Once we were on our way again, traveling in a straight line as we ought to have been going all along, we passed the Golden Gate Mountains and Old Tucson. When we felt that we had been going in a straight line for long enough, and we saw that the sun was sufficiently hot and in prime position to reach the majority of surface area on our bodies, we decided that it was as good a time as any to hit the Desert Discovery Trail. We parked the vans and split into two groups, one group walked one way on the _ mile loop trail, and the other group covered the remaining semicircle until the two met halfway. At the halfway point, no one had really seen anything yet, so we decided to break into groups of twos and threes and venture off the beaten path. And here is the low-down of what happened from there:

John "John Booze" Booze and Long Pork Liz discovered that most of the birds tended to be closer to the road than one would assume. One is supposed to assume that they would be located further into the brush, in the depths of the Saguaro Desert Ð they are, however, surprisingly attracted to the large and uncannily clean SUVs of the desert people. Once we scouted out a prime spot along the extensive desert road, we saw quite a few birds.

We saw 11 Phyrrlouxia, which sounds like a virus but really is a bird, I promise

Four adult male Verdin, along with several juvenile of the same species

One LeConte's Thrasher Ð a bird which was apparently named by a sentimental Frenchman who was going to give the bird a long and elegant name, but got lazy in the middle and said, "What the hell, we'll just call it a thrasher."

One Black-Tailed Gnat Catcher Ð a bird that either likes to eat gnats, or just likes to catch them. Either way Ð what a weirdo.

Lots of Mocking Birds

Lots of Morning Doves

And a lot of Gila Woodpeckers Ð which is pronounced "hyeela", not "Gila".

As for mammals, John Kahwati saw a jackrabbit. Needless to say, we also saw a lot of Saguaro cacti, a lot of Prickly Pears, and, my personal favorite, the infamous Jumping Cholla. The Jumping Cholla are the cacti that taught me why Dr. Merck, Dr. Holtz and Ms. Shaw had included a comb in our list of items to pack. And here I thought they just wanted us to look good.

After sitting down to an unexpected meal of Ð surprise! Ð sandwiches and Thomas' bagels, we were refreshed and ready for the second half of the day, an afternoon that would be spent at the Sonoran Desert Museum. As we rolled down the road in our white vans, all the roadside birds waved good-bye and we sailed down the highway towards the Desert Museum.

Day 5 (Part II) - Sonoran Desert Museum and an odd hike
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