Desert Scenery

As promised, more photos from our spring break adventures.  On St. Patrick's Day, we drove along the Apache Trail, which is one of the prettiest drives near our house.  We had hoped there would be more desert wildflowers blooming--apparently, the winter rains didn't inspire the lupines and columbines.  There were mostly desert marigolds and brittlebush--all a wonderful lemon-yellow.  Still, despite the lack of flowers, the views along this road are quite wonderful.  This is a sampling.  (If you click on the photos, you'll be taken to another screen where you can see them larger.  Click on that, and they'll appear full size.)

Now before you tell me what a lovely place I live in, realize that this is one very special spot.  You have to drive fairly far out of town to get to it, and most of Arizona doesn't actually look like this.  As I've said before, mostly it's beige.  One reason I like to go on this particular sojourn is that it's a lot prettier than most of what I see each day.

Maine--especially Mount Desert Island--and North Carolina are the prettiest places I've lived in, with Kentucky being right up there on the list.  Arizona?  Pretty far down there, but it too has some wonderful things to recommend it.  Not least of those is that it's usually pretty warm here while the rest of the country is freezing during the winter.