Fall in Sedona

Travel writer Sherry Ott posted a list of “Most Unusual Destinations for Viewing Fall Colors” and suggests “While everyone heads east, why not just head North” to Minnesota or Alaska or across the ocean to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain or trek the mountains of Nepal.

For travel a little later in the season, you could look another direction: Southwest. Season-seekers in Phoenix are used to heading to Flagstaff and Sedona to get their fall color fix, but Northern Arizona isn’t on the radar for most people.

In Sedona, the fall color is set against the backdrop of its gorgeous red rocks. The peak color is on the later side. A lot of times we’re in Sedona over Columbus Day weekend, when the leaves are just beginning to turn.

Do the leaves change where you live? Have you ever travelled for fall color?

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February 19, 2015February 19, 2015

Finding wildflowers in the Arizona desert

There’s something particularly breathtaking about wildflowers in the Sonoran desert. Maybe because of the way they transform the landscape. Maybe because their season is so brief and precious. Maybe because some years Mexican poppies turn entire hillsides gold, and other years there is only a sprinkling of color. The best years become part of local lore.

People try to guess when we’ll have a good year for wildflowers, but they’re hard to predict, like the weather. Actually, it’s the weather for months before wildflower season that has the largest impact on what you’ll see in March.

Because of their unpredictability, knowing if/when/where wildflowers have arrived depends on someone spotting them and spreading the word – which is much quicker with the internet amplifying the message.

Where to find Arizona’s spring wildflower sightings online

DesertUSA covers regions throughout the Southwest and as far north as Oregon. People submit notes (and sometimes photos) about where they’ve spotted wildflowers. There are also reports from Arizona State Parks, Boyce Thompson Arboretum, and Grand Canyon National Park.
The Desert Botanical Garden has a Pinterest map of Arizona wildflower sightings. The DBG itself is a great place to see wildflowers.
During the season, Wild in Arizona has more detailed field reports from two nature photographers.

Even though it’s early, Phillip and I have already been spotting wildflowers. There were a few as we headed north from town on the 17 over the weekend. A week before that we spotted a single yellow flower while hiking at South Mountain. It might’ve been the first Mexican poppy of the season or an earlier-blooming desert sunflower.

Either way, it looks like it could be a good wildflower year.

– More info –

April 18, 2014April 17, 2014

The moon and our shadow

As we watched the lunar eclipse Monday night, I joked with Phillip that I could see our two shadows on top of the earth’s up there too.

We had walked down our sidewalk to get out from behind the trees. A few of our neighbors were already outside, sitting in yards, leaning over balconies, or standing on the sidewalk like us. No one said much. They greeted us or just smiled. One commented “Crazy, huh?” And it was. A lot of the people I used to know have moved out, and I haven’t really gotten to know this new crowd yet. But there we were, hanging out together outside at midnight, craning our necks to watch the shadow of the planet we were standing on eclipse the moon.

I felt a sense of community with our neighborhood that I hadn’t in a long time.

I remember looking at the moon the first time I travelled outside the country. It almost felt strange how it looked exactly the same when so much around me seemed a little off. But there it was, on its journey across the skies of the world, tugging at the oceans, moving through its same phases.

This week a lot of people in a lot of places were looking up at it in the same moment – from sidewalks and balconies, through windows and telescopes – like one huge, sprawling neighborhood.

Whether you saw it or not, we all cast a shadow across the moon.