The Desert Blooms

Before leaving Phoenix, we visited the Desert Botanical Garden for the Electric Desert—a light and sound experience. Color and music merged to give a dramatic show. Technically, I’d love to know how they were able to project the lights so precisely. Here are a sequence of photos of the same cactus cluster. 

We drove from Phoenix to Joshua Tree National Park. As we’ve seen on the news, the wildflowers are in bloom, and they indeed are spectacular. 

And, of course, we saw all the Joshua trees. The park has two distinct deserts—the Colorado and the Mohave. The trees are only native to the Mohave which has a higher elevation. 

The seeds of the tree are only pollinated by the yucca moth. The moth gathers the flower’s pollen to nourish her expected offspring. She taps the pollen into the funnel shaped pistil. At the base of the pistil are undeveloped seeds. It is here that the moth lays her eggs. Now fertilized by the pollen, the seeds grow and provide food for the hatching larvae. The larvae grow and emerge, but plenty of seeds are left to scatter. 

Back in Arizona

After less than a month, we are back in sunny, warm Arizona. We are spending a couple days in the Phoenix area before heading to the Palm Springs where we spend a week with the Garfield’s and Van Reusen’s. 

Visited the Phoenix Art Museum and discovered another one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms, titled “You Who Are Being Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Butterflies”, whatever that means! It also happens that March 22 is Kasama’s ninetieth birthday so I got to transform myself into Yayoi. 

Here’s a link:

http://myphotos.sooh.com/p/2WnK2Lsz4VH

Scroll down for the stills. 

The museum is quite interesting. The entry is decorated with 25,000 black paper moths/butterflies. 

Then on to a Brewers spring training game against the Cincinnati Reds. The American Family stadium is quite something. 

And we got to watch the racing sausages.  And the Brewers won. Opening day is next week!!

She said ‘Yes’

Erich proposed to Ashlee on Valentine’s Day, and (no surprise) she said yes. We got to spend a couple days with the kids (and the dogs) on our way back home. Wedding probably won’t happen until next year, but they are already looking at houses. 

Cowboy Country

We had a great time in Houston with our friends Barbara and Ray. Of course we tested one of the local craft breweries—Saint Arnold’s, named for the patron saint of brewers. 

The big event in town was the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo—think state fair on a grand scale. It’s held at the NRG stadium where the Texans play football. 

There is livestock judging and a huge carnival section. But the big draw is the rodeo and nightly entertainment. Over 2.5 million attend over the course of the run. 

We watched the rodeo from our suite. The real deal—bull and bronco riding, calf roping, etc.—way too dangerous. Mommas, don’t let your sons grow up to be cowboys!!

Then it was converted to a concert stage for the Turnpike Troubadors. 

Nice to visit Houston, but I wouldn’t want to live there. There are over 4 million people and sooooo much traffic. The interstate that runs right though the middle of the city is 8 lanes wide on each side!!

The stars at night, are big and bright....

deep in the heart of Texas. The skies are truly exceptional. I only wish I could send a photo of the millions of stars. 

We have left west Texas and are heading toward Houston. Our time at Lajitas resort near Big Bend Nat’l Park (on the Rio Grande) was terrific. The origins of the resort date to 1899 when it was a trading post. The building now contains a longhorn museum. 

Lovely setting for breakfast at the resort. 

We enjoyed some down home western music by the Whitfords. They provide free concerts and yoga three times a week!

Rick played a couple rounds of golf in 80 degree weather. The course is surrealistic. Below is the view of a par 3 from the tee box. You can imagine how many golf balls there in the gully in front of the green—I left one there myself last year. 

As we drove through Big Bend, the wildflowers were abundant, especially the purple lupine  

And even in Marathon, TX, (population 430) there is a little free library at the gas station. 

Mary’s Misery

Well, it happened again— a medical adventure for Mary in Las Cruces, NM. One of her pesky kidney stones decided it wanted to leave the kidney and go on its own adventure down to the bladder. Problem is that it got stuck part way down, creating excruciating pain and discomfort. So I got to meet the nice staff at Mountain View Regional Medical Center. Was there for less than 24 hours, and we are now back on our way to Texas. At least it didn’t happen just before we leave for our London trip!!

44 Miles

I’m hoping this link will take you to a video I took on our last day of hiking on the Chuck Wagon trail—beautiful!!

https://youtu.be/_uWxUo4LiyMhttps://youtu.be/_uWxUo4LiyM

44 miles—that’s the sum total of our hiking in Sedona. All the trails were interesting but some more challenging than others.