Sometimes on a road trip….
…one must pull-over to the side of the road and capture that particular image of what one knows is an ultra-transient, fleeting, and likely never to be duplicated, moment in time.
Somewhere between six and ten miles south of the Arizona/Nevada border…on US Highway 93, southbound….
It drizzled, sprinkled, and rained for all but the first 60 miles of yesterday’s journey northward…water falling in varying strength from a solid blanket of clouds that only appeared to be too high to be willing to loose any of its bounty. Today’s return trip revealed bright sunshine blasting through and around many-sized clouds that had broken free from the earlier blanket. There were some dark spots, too, that were still intent upon delivering more water to the mountains…low clouds unraveling their weave and being dragged, blown, carried, somehow east and away from of our route.
intentionally
it was the first in another stage of what has already been many trips down the road to and from an old place to a new one and back again and now the old is new and the new is old and desire is pulled in its different directions while the things that are passing are indeed passing and mostly without notice because they are not seen in their many familiarities, the eyes are on the road and the surrounding mountains and clouds in order to make it from one point to another and all the things in between are scant registers on a mental screen that has been focused toward what is within and not without…
the shadowed and purpled mountains didn’t register inside the lens as they did in my mind and it was only with disappointment that I stared at the screen with its muted hues and wondered at beauty and desire and hope, I had looked closer in another direction, through the side window, actually, beyond the bug-splatter on the forward windscreen and the highway railing and yellow lines and fractured glass and butts along the shoulder and it didn’t just come to me then, I had to seek it out, intentionally
Found in the desert, too….
This post is a carry-over from the earlier one, Found in the desert…a little bit of a photo album from a relatively recent trip to Tucson, Arizona, USA. Again, the backdrop for the first image is the Santa Catalina Mountains…it used to be considered a geographic boundary of the greater Tucson area, but housing developments and commercial interests have moved or spread to this side over the years.
The photo contains representations of the well-known Saguaro cactus, Prickly Pear cactus, some Cholla, and even a bit of what I believe is a small Yucca in the bottom right corner…as well as what might be Greasewood bushes/shrubs.
Twin (?) Saguaro cacti that have seen better times…I believe they are approaching their end….
A nice patch of Prickly Pear cactus….
While the below photo isn’t nearly as impressive as the array of hummingbird images you’ll find when visiting Emilio at Disperser Tracks, I thought it was still pretty cool…. You can click on the highlighted words in the previous sentence to see his two posts on the Hummers of Summer 2012. Wonderful photos…..
A little bit of Cholla cactus skeleton in the below shot….
Fruit and not-so-friendly spines from a Golden Barrel cactus….
And lastly, a clutch of Saguaro cacti with some Prickly Pear in the foreground….
Thank you for visiting…I hope you’ve enjoyed the glimpse into the desert life of Tucson, Arizona.
Found in the desert
I recently spent a few days in Tucson, Arizona, USA…visiting with my wife’s mother, walking the morning-quiet roads of her desert neighborhood, and taking a new perspective when viewing the natural beauty of the surroundings.
Those are the Santa Catalina Mountains in the background, with Mount Lemmon at the highest point, some 9,157 feet in elevation. A Prickly Pear Cactus with fruit is in the foreground and the iconic Saguaro Cactus is prominent toward the left of the photo…I believe that might be a Palo Verde tree beneath the Saguaro with its green bark…and I’m not sure about the larger tree/shrub to the right…maybe a Greasewood.
Owls and woodpeckers often live in the holes that you see in the Saguaro’s limbs.
I believe these are Harris Hawks…they were mostly immobile when I was photographing them…but that only lasted for a minute or so….
Again, if I’m not mistaken, these are a variety of Cholla Cactus…and those spines can cause quite a bit of discomfort….
Wikipedia says that there are seven sub-species of Mule Deer…with the Rocky Mountain sub-species ranging the western portion of the United States and up into Canada. Aside from the Saguaro Cactus, you can also see the Ocotillo Cactus (the other tall and very skinny plant), Palo Verde, Prickly Pear Cactus, and directly behind the deer, what I believe might be more Greasewood.
Prickly Pear Cactus with fruit. You can purchase Prickly Pear jelly and candy in local stores…or you can “Google-it” and find them on-line, as well. 🙂
Desert sunsets can be beautiful…lighting the mountains with rose and orange hues…and bringing-out greater definition of the mountain’s many surfaces as shadows grow….
Scott's Place...Images and Words 