Desert in Bloom

Back home on the Oregon farm, with so many photos to sort through, I began to get a case of can't-do-it-itis. I mean a few don't tell the story which is flowers everywhere in color combinations that you swear someone must have planted them with how complementary colors grow together.

When in the desert, the ideal way to see the flowers is head for a gravel road or trail head; then you are free to go slow, watch, sometimes walk down dry washes and look for bits of colors. Sometimes they leap out at you and it requires no search. Always keep your eyes open for snakes which you will almost never see, but it still would be a nasty surprise (for you and the snake) to step on one sunning. Also don't carelessly lift rocks with bare hands as one of the few potentially deadly scorpions is in Arizona.

Some flowers appear in big showy displays. Others are smaller, hidden under palo verde or mesquite trees. All are worth seeing. The experience of being on that kind of gravel road reminds me of driving in Yellowstone Park where you also see cars stopped so you stop also to see what wild animal they are watching-- except this time it will be flowers.

In one case, I saw the first blooming cactus-- for us anyway. We stopped the car as soon as we saw a wide enough place. I got out to walk back for the photo-op and walked right by it the first time. Returning, I went a lot slower. The cactus was very close to the road but easily missed. In a few more days, it would not be missed as it was full of buds. After we had taken a lot of pictures, another car came along, and we pointed to the cactus.

For us, it was one of many such opportunities, over many years, although this was the best display since 1998, or so the papers said, and I believed them. The rains came perfectly and the flowers were spectacular-- some varieties I had never seen.

Since you cannot all drive down that gravel road to see the flowers, I wasn't sure how to show their photos here. Picasa was one option but it appears to only download 5 photos at a time. Flicka had an advantage since I already had paid for a membership there. Even better, it offers a desktop feature that allows drop and drag to add many photos to an album.

If you are a flower lover, click on the link: Desert in Bloom. I do know a few of their commonly known names, fairy duster, desert mallow, brittlebush, desert lupine, etc. but didn't take the time to label them yet because it's not really about what they are called when you are driving down that travel road or stopping along a trail.

If someday I find an easy to use site that allows music, I would probably give it a try. I'd have loved to play something from Enigma to accompany these flowers. If you have an album you really like, you might put it on before you start the slide show. Flowers and music seem to go together.

(All photos here and on the Flickr link, Desert in Bloom, were taken March 17-18, 2008, on the west side of Tucson in Saguaro National Park, a small part of the Arizona-Sonoran Desert. Every time I hike or drive in such places, I appreciate anew the earlier generations who unselfishly set them aside for everybody to enjoy. We should be so unselfish.)