I´m finally back in the old world. The pure fact of being stuck in this cold, rainy, rattlesnake-free country again depressed me quite a bit in the beginning. But fortunately, I have a crazy family which makes me feel at home again. And sometimes, as you can clearly see in the picture above, they can even behave for two seconds...:)
My heart is bleeding and my head is protesting, but everything´s got an end: I had the honor to explore the Southwest and especially the Sonoran desert from the bottom - with all its wild creatures (humans included...). I´ll miss hiking with the Ramblers and the Hiking Meetup Group, dancing in the monsoon rain with Hilary on top of our roof, hunting rattlesnakes in Sabino Canyon with Christopher, sliding down the water slide near Hutch´s pool with the Mermaid, hissing louder than Simba, watching the 129,5th gunfight with Martin, observing barbies with Erynn, Mike and Andrew, collecting deads of the week, stalking hummingbirds in the Botanical Gardens and driving Dr. Jost crazy with my cloning issues. I´ll miss Tucson!!!! Hope you all come and visit me in Berlin or wherever I´ll decide to live!!!!
Voilá: Tucson´s nicest aaaand most talented tattoo-artist - at least I beleive that. Hilary, next time it´s your turn:)
On the last day of this eventful little trip (we couldn´t possibly been able to visit more places in four days) I finally got my water. Cause you must know that holidays without at least one bathing- in- nature opportunity are no holidays. And for this reason we hiked to the hottest hot springs I´ve ever plunged myself in. 
But since it was quite cold outside we didn´t care and cooked ourselves until our skins turned red as a crab´s shell. Yeah, yeah, yeah:)
This tarantula has a story... a chaotic one, as you might guess. We drove up and down a sinuous road and suddenly saw this tarantula walk across the street. So of course, we stopped immediately in order to save the poor tarantula´s life and not to produce a new chief character for flattened fauna II. Then - after taking half a dozen pictures and making a movie of the poor spider - the tarantula safely disappeared in the next bush and we got back in the car and kept on driving. Until I recognized that something was missing - ehm, yes: my camera. But since crazy people are lucky people - tadaaaa - my precious little Canon was still lying on the roof when I looked after it:)
White Sands is the most beautiful National Park ever-ever. At least for me! It´s the total reduction of all sensations: there are only two colors - white and blue, there´s no sound and no smell at all and the only two things you can feel are the wind and the sand under your feet - it´s entirely magical!
Cold beauty and white cacti, pink water running through winter landscapes died by prickly pear, how wonderful, how wonderful!
Okay. I´ve already learned that some people out there in this Nation (sorry, I just love this sentence:)) eat weard stuff. But going shopping in Food City opens even newer views on what´s edible. I assume Mexicans have stronger guts than I do....
Tina saw this cute little bugger run across the path. I ran after it and finally found it hiding under a prickly pear cactus. I guess I was really lucky that it wasn´t scared of me and didn´t leave me a stinky souvenir...
Isn´t it cool - a spider family! Look how cute the tiny little babyspiders are!!!!
Little shark caught a toad!!!!
Since it was getting dark already and we didn´t reach the actual pools yet, Katja, Tina, Christopher and I just took a quick swim in one of the smaller waterholes and then headed back to the trailhead.
As you can see, Tina loves structure and well - I love mushrooms:) We also visited the butterfly exhibition where Katja constantly stalked the poor butterflies with her camera...
