We began our journey by meeting at the windy Babad Do’ag, hunted for shelter and met our grad fellows. There we were introduced to the unique the Sky Islands of southern Arizona. The next stop we observed an intermittent mountain stream and hopped between boulders deposited in the stream channel. We saw lots of cool animal tracks. Windy point was located higher on the mountain and provided a vista overlooking Tucson. The last stop was the Sky School, where we checked into dorms, had a chilly hike and played an exhilarating game of predator-prey. Once at the Center, we did rotations- including dendrochronology, microbiology and geology. We are looking forward to the evening activities of star gazing with the telescope, constellation story telling and free time in the dorms!