Arizona Facts

The Saguaro Cactus, found in South-western United States does NOT grow branches until it is 75 years old.

It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.

The first McDonald’s drive-thru was opened near a military base in Arizona “to serve soldiers who weren’t permitted to get out of their cars while wearing fatigues.”

The largest underground hotel suite in the world is located 21 stories below the surface in Arizona's Grand Canyon Caverns. The Cavern Suite sits in a 345-million-year-old cave and costs $1,000 per night.

A proposed 2,250-foot Solar Wind Energy Tower in Arizona was designed to generate as much electricity as the Hoover Dam by spraying water mist at the top, creating a downdraft that would spin turbines at the base.

Buford, a Pyrenees-Anatolian ranch dog, found 2-year-old Boden Allen alone in the Arizona desert and walked him 7 miles home through mountain-lion country. State police spotted two mountain lions on his trail. Boden told his rescuers: "I followed the dog back." Buford became an honorary search and rescue member.

London Bridge, the real one from the Thames, now stands in the Arizona desert. In 1968, developer Robert McCulloch bought it for $2.46 million. Workers numbered every exterior granite block, shipped them 10,000 miles through the Panama Canal, and rebuilt the bridge over a canal in Lake Havasu City. It reopened in 1971 and still draws tourists today.

Grand Canyon's Colorado River runs 277 miles through the canyon from Lees Ferry. Inside it sits Crystal Rapid, rated 8 out of 10 on the canyon's own danger scale. A 1966 flash flood dumped rock into the river there. The park's swiftwater rescue team does not avoid that water. In one drill, they flipped a raft on purpose in Crystal Rapid, then raced the current to right it. They still train in it several times a year.