I have to admit I am a lover of tropical landscapes. I love the palm trees swaying in the gentle breezes, the red hibiscus in bloom everywhere and the orange blossom's fragrance is such a blessing. I also love never being very far from a body of water. While I was "exiled" in Cincinnati that is what I missed most, water...and also azaleas.
So now I am in Peoria AZ. It's about thirty miles north of Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert. I may as well be in a foreign land. As I drove out of Phoenix into the desert landscape my first thought was "this is ugly." Then I began to see the big awesome cacti. They are amazing! I was actually lost and in the middle of nowhere because I programed the wrong street number into the GPS. God has a sense of humor that way. I would never have seen the giant cacti and the smaller ones (don't no the name) that are in full bloom with bright red flowers on their tippy tops. When the GPS announced "I had arrived" there was not a building or human in sight. That's when I realized the desert has it's own beauty and it should be appreciated.
I sat there on the side of the road looking around at the barren land with the hills and mountains rising in the distance. There were no trees and seemingly very little color. However upon closer examination I found there is much color in the desert, not the bright vibrant kind but dusty hues or green and gray along with the earth tone colors of the hills.
I am intending to visit a botanical garden and a couple of nurseries this week to learn the names of some the beautiful specimens I have spotted already. There won't be any effort going into learning about lawn grasses. There aren't any. Every "yard" is sand and rock. I can't say I could live without St. Augustine but on the other hand there are no chinch bugs and no mowing! Wouldn't that be something!
The cacti were the things that really stood out on to me as I made my way north of Phoenix towards Sedona. Once in Sedona, my partner and I thought we had arrived on Mars things were so red. The scenery was beautiful, but again there were no yards, only rocks and landscaping.
ReplyDeleteMost people probably know the cacti I was so impressed with are the Saguaro. If nothing else this place is certainly serene. You can almost here the chants of the ancient native indian tribes. Tomorrow's quest will be to learn as much as we can about the local ancient tribes. Wish you were here with us.
ReplyDeleteThis just proves that there is beauty everywhere if you just open your eyes and look for it. When we lived in Kansas for a few months following several years in New Hampshire, I was having beauty withdrawal. But then I began to look at the waving seas of prairie grasses and the fields of giant sunflowers, and the fantastic sunsets that appeared to be close enough to reach out and touch as the sun sank in the west...and I realized that God had painted that landscape with a different paintbrush than in New England, but it was still beautiful in its own unique way. So glad you are having a good time in the desert. Hope to hear more when you return.
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