This national park is divided into two parts, the east and west parts, on each side of the city of Tucson (too-son). The
park is located next to the city so no long driving time is necessary. The west side is the smallest one but has the Arizona Sonoran desert museum.
Tucson is hidden from sight by some mountains.
Driving on Picture Rocks Road is quite impressive, as suddenly it passes through the cactus forest. The ground is dry and
covered with gravel, some small cacti (barrel cactus, hedgehog cactus, teddy-bear cholla) and numerous green sticks of saguaros are everywhere. They
look like trunks without branches and leaves. A saguaro at 50 years can be as tall as 7 feet. The first arm appears around 75 years. At 100 years the
cactus can be as tall as 25 feet, and even reach 50 feet at 150 years.
They were just starting to bloom at the beginning of May. Maybe one tenth of the flowers were out. The rangers told us that
the peak bloom would be two weeks later. A peculiar thing is that the flowers are located only at the end of each arm and on top of the main trunk.
Small saguaros (less than 3 feet) don’t seem to have flowers. As a result, if you want to take a good picture of a flower, you need a ladder.
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