Technology. It's fantastic.

There once was a man in AZ

With puncture wounds on his knee.

He went to a college

Learned lots of useless knowledge

And wandered away with glee.

I ran into a mental block while at the museum on UoA's campus. The two main exhibits detailed various native amerian cultures and pottery. Two secondary exhibits detailed mexican culture (with spanish influence) and mammoths. The native american exhibit was segmented into 9 different cultures; each segment included their geographical location, religious origin story, various crafts and tools (and their purpose), clothing, and what happened when the white man made an appearance. The geographical locations ranged from shoreline to near rivers to smack dab in the middle of the desert, with appropriate lifestyles for each. The shoreline tribes fished (story: the gods put man upon a horse. He fell off. They instead put him on a boat. While paddling, he speared a fish, and it was at that time they realized that they were not ment to farm). The river based tribes were farming based, while the desert tribes were nomadic; during the wet seasons they lived in the desert, following the river flows for farming and gathering, while during the dry seasons, they lived in the mountains with the provisions they were able to gather / grow. Their tools were, for obvious reasons, tailored to match the geographical areas they hailed from.

I'm sure you've noticed at this point that I've yet to use a tribe name. And therein lies my mental block. While fascinating, this information isn't directly useful. That is not to say that history is a waste; just that this particular branch of history is useless to me. I enjoyed the exposure to their cultures, and I both admire and respect their tenacity, culture, and artwork, amoung other things, but an extensive knowledge of the various native american tribes serves me no purpose. And it is for that reason that I made no effort to remember the various tribes; for me, it is enough to have a glance into their cultures.

The second exhibit was a display of various pots, bowls, and other crafts. The central display held a surprising number of undamaged pots; I was under the impression that most were at least to some degree damaged. that isn't to say that none were damaged. In fact, there was a rather large bowl that was constructed from various pieces. At the back of the room was a tremendous vault, which although interesting, was barred from public entrance. I would have adored going into the vault, but I learned from professor Arion that (while possible) a tour of the vault would turn a one hour trip to UoA into a full day odyssy.

The third and fourth exhibits, while not required for our expidition, also caught a bit of my interest. The former was a look into mexican culture, ranging from before the arrival of the spaniards to present day. The latter was a mammoth museum, which sported a wonderful mammoth jaw. Again, while interesting, the information there was of little use to me. I apologize for the blur.

The trip was concluded with a trip to the museum gift shop. I shall let the following pictures explain my opinion of the gift shop completely.

I really want to stress that this was NOT the most expensive item there. Not even close. If I can one day wander into this museum, and purchase a few of these items as souveniers, I'll know I did something amazing with my life. Or something highly illegal. Either way, I can't even dream of affording these things right now.

After our expidition, the class split into 3 groups; 7 students remained behind to explore the campus in further detail, 2 students (myself and Jenny) decided to travel to a canyon, and the reamining 2 students were the ferriers, who drove Jenny and me to the canyon.

Due to time constraints, we paid the fee to take the shuttle to the top of the road. While waiting for the shuttle tour to start, Jenny and I both were enthralled by a swarm of quail that were traveling through the underbrush. There was also a roadrunner, which was kind enough to pose for a good minute and a half of pictures. During the drive (and the accompanying speech), we heard about various local flora and fauna. One of the random passerbyers flagged us down to inform the driver that a mountain lion was relaxing in one of the dry streambeds. With that knoweldge, we continued our drive up; I was only half paying attention to the speech, for my focus was mostly directed to the amazing view on the way up.

The walk back down was relaxing, and lead to another ~100 pictures taken. (some of which were of things I snapped on the way up, but being not in a 15 mile per hour bumpy shuttle let me get clearer pictures). Near the bottom, we stopped and looked for the mountain lion. Unable to find her, I snapped the warning sign (not pictured) and continued on. We found out from a nice couple about 10 minutes later that after crossing the bridge, the mountain lion had come out of the riverbed and followed us for a bit before running back into the wild. We were... upset, to say the least; doubly so because not only did we miss the majestic beast, but apparently it could have struck us down without noticing. We're clearly very observant. The day was wrapped up with us returning to the gift shop where I broke down and purchased a pile of various jams, honeys' and syrups (Inventory count: 1 cactus apple jelly, 2 prickly pear cactus jellys, 1 prickly pear honey, 1 prickly pear syrup). I shall test at least the cactus apple jelly and prickly pear cactus jelly before our hike next week, so that if I enjoy them, I can stockpile before we head back to WI.