And now for something completely different…

Jim wanted to zip up to Phoenix for a day to visit the Musical Instrument Museum. Now, I love music and am always interested in the various instruments, but of all the ways we could spend a day in a different state… I wasn’t overly excited. I was fabulously WRONG. The MIM is AMAZING, and we could have easily filled two days enjoying it!

It’s a “living” museum, with collections from literally all over the world… every country.

Each museum visitor gets a set of headphones connected to a little radio you can clip to your belt. As you approach any of the hundreds of TV screens, the audio fades in and you can listen to interviews and performances that are just wonderful.

I can’t remember which country, but one of them didn’t have adequate access to brass so they created equivalent brass instruments from bamboo. They sounded pretty good! The bottom line is that music is a universal language, and it seems that it’s something that human beings all need to speak in one way or another. What struck me was how common certain instruments were around the world, from vastly different climates and cultures such as bagpipes, guitars/lutes and zithers.

The Mechanical Music Gallery was enchanting – player pianos, music boxes, late 19th century singing birds, and a few orchestrions (that still work), among other treasures.

A special exhibit called “The Electric Guitar – Inventing an American Icon” is going on at the MIM right now (through September 15) – if you have any interest in guitars you MUST SEE IT! Wow. Photographs just don’t convey the breadth and depth of this exhibit, with about 80 different electric guitars and amps, as well as other instruments that have been electrified beginning in the 1930s.

There were samples of electric guitar music from all genres spanning almost 90 years, with explanations and interviews and iconic performances.

We spent the entire day and had to race through the upstairs galleries because we just ran out of time, wishing we had another day to savor it all. This last photo is of a custom guitar built by Paul Reed Smith (PRS) in Annapolis, Maryland – our friend Jim’s favorite brand…

We loved exploring the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) area in the North Maricopa Mountains Wilderness, part of the Sonoran Desert National Recreation Area.

We bounced along a dusty rugged 4WD road to get to the trailhead for Margie’s Cove, spotting a roadrunner on the way, and crossing a number of dry washes. The saguaro cactus dominated the landscape, along with some mesquite and creosote bushes. Recent rains started flowers blooming…

…and we spotted gray fox, jackrabbits, kangaroo rats, butterflies, hummingbirds, cactus wrens, and lizards.

There were remnants of past ranching activity, but the area is protected now. Cattle can be rough on the saguaros! Saguaros are very slow growing plants, taking up to 10 years to grow to just one inch, and 70 years to reach six or more feet in height. The pleats in their skin allow for expansion when there’s ample water, and they have a strong skeleton of wood – which you can see from the remains of this dead saguaro.

Saguaros can sprout arms when they are over 50 years old, with the same kind of wood structure underneath.

These cactus grow to 40 feet in height, and they can live for 150-200 years. They’re magnificent! Other types of cactus dotted the landscape such as cholla and fishhook barrel cactus – some with fruit.

Another interesting BLM site in the area was the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, a place of significance for local native people. The petroglyphs were made by the Hohokam people between 350-1400 AD, and this site has over 800 distinct glyphs. The overall site isn’t very big – the trail around the rocks is only 1/4 mile, so it’s interesting that there are so many concentrated here. There are other petroglyph sites in the region, but none have as many as this one.