As anyone who's read this blog for a while knows, I love love love the desert. There's just something magical about it for me, and we try to visit the various deserts of the west whenever possible. We squeezed in one such weekend visit back in February, during the rainy season in Arizona. Now, I mention this because as we boarded the plane that sunny Friday afternoon in the Bay Area, with light jackets and t-shirts packed, we were aware of a forecast of rain in Tuscon, but, hey, it's the desert, how bad can it be? We've been through storms in Death Valley before, and it's a lot of wind, and not a lot of moisture, so we weren't worried. What we should have been thinking of instead, however, was the snow storm we drove through at the Grand Canyon back in November, but hindsight's always 20-20.
When we drove down to Saguaro National Park on Saturday, ready for a day of hiking and photo-taking, we were optimistic about the weather. Clouds were rolling in, but I was thinking of the fantistically soft light and interesting skies I'd have for photographing the cacti. We hiked a solid five miles out in relatively good weather, and life was good. Then, all of a sudden, the skies opened up, and seas of water dumped down on us (yes, seas). I'm not sure I've gotten as wet and cold as we were that day even during snow-melt river crossings while backpacking in the Sierra. Five soggy miles later, we dove into the white Mustang convertible rental car (convertible to enjoy all that rain, of course!) and praised whoever it was that thought heating cars was a good idea.
And now for the reason you're really here, the photos!
In the desert, things don't decay like they do in rainy (really rainy) climates, so skeletons of saguaros past hang around for a log time...
While the saguaros were the main attraction, the saguaro forest is home to a large number of other cacti and plant and animal life. One of my favorites was the aptly named Fishhook cactus.
Happy Thursday, folks!
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