Musical Instrument Museum, hiking among saguaros

At 8:15AM, our group convenes at the Musical Instrument Museum, where we get a private tour of “the most extraordinary museum you’ll ever hear.”  The building, just four years old, is bright, open and graceful, done in desert colors. In the Experience Gallery, we, along with a group of school kids, bang the drums, play the harps and strum the guitars.  In the Artist Gallery, we cannot pull ourselves away from the piano on which John Lennon wrote, “Imagine.” We get goose bumps watching the video of people around the world singing the song.  We spend the rest of our time enjoying the videos in the North America room.  The next visit, we’ll have to experience the rooms of artists, instruments and cultures from around the rest of the world.  We have ceviche salads at the museum’s Café, where they serve a wide range of international foods.  We drive up to Desert Mountain for a guided 3-hour hike, enjoying the vistas, saguaros and desert flowers.  We eat dinner on Desert Mountain, where we view the sunset and the deepening colors of the evening.