Clint Eastwood rides across a desert landscape with towering spiny cacti silhouetted by a setting sun.

The giant saguaro (pronounced sa-WAH-ro) is a universal symbol of the American west, yet found only in Arizona and southwest California. Arizona's Saguaro National Park, southeast of Phoenix, is home to the most impressive of these subtropical giants.

According to the U.S. National Park Service, more than 1.6 million saguaros grow within the park; a 20-foot-tall saguaro weighs about 2,000 pounds and lives on average 150 years.

Inside the park, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum combines an open-air zoo, a natural history museum and botanical garden. The museum's impressive public programs include a Raptor Free Flight demo that showcases free-flying birds of prey in the open desert, barn owls moving like ghosts across the landscape, and prairie falcons that dive from high in the sky. Or take a 30-minute walk with a keeper to meet otters and big-horn sheep.

The centuries-old San Xavier del Bac Mission, nine miles south of Tucson, is known as the White Dove of the Desert, and is considered to be one of the finest examples of mission architecture in the United States. The mission is open to all from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

The park service's Web site, nps.gov/sagu, has information about driving, hiking, biking or backpacking among the saguaro. The park is open 7 a.m. to sunset daily; the visitor center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (except Christmas Day).