Here in Tucson, Arizona, when it’s a frosty 110 degrees outside with no relief in sight, some of us from back East do the California dreaming thing and wish we’d kept driving further west. Hot and desperate, we visit the International Wildlife Museum, which could be called the International Dead Life Museum. It is a devotion to the exploits of safari hunters and a tribute to the art of taxidermy.

The outside looks like a castle with a moat. And it has big statues of lions and tigers and elks! Like Lady Gaga, it’s in bad taste but hip at the same time.

Inside it’s truly an educational experience in that you get to learn just how dead animals get stuffed in a step-by-step process. The air conditioning is great!

Where else can you see the bones of a rattlesnake? Or an alligator?

Or an entire roomful of dead moths and butterflies?

Where else can you see a room that contains the bodies of every variety of deer in the world (even little bitty Dik Diks)?

And a huge rock with all kinds of sheep on it! Wow! Impressive!
And it’s cool inside!

The museum has dioramas of animals living everywhere
from the Arctic …

to Africa …

to Arizona!

I grew fond of this fellow:

And the dude with the big grin:

The thing is the stuffed animals have eyes that seem to follow your every movement. Here’s looking at you, kid.

Enough already, you’re giving me the creeps.

Great White Hunters like Teddy Roosevelt are not politically correct anymore. But whatever.

The International Wildlife Museum in Tucson is an interesting Sunday-afternoon-place when you can’t stand another moment at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

And did I mention —- it’s cool inside??