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A Photo Safari Through Madera Canyon, Arizona, After a Very Rainy Summer
Join me on a short photo safari in and around Madera Canyon, which, thanks to the rain, doesn’t look like it belongs in Arizona. This is my first post for Natalie’s Weekend Coffee Share blog link-up. Why yes, I am addicted to blog hops and photo challenges. Why do you ask? Blog hops like this one provide an opportunity to connect with other bloggers, so we can learn about each other’s lives and support each other. This particular blog hop should give me a great way to share the random bits and pieces of my life with the kind folks who read my blog. So, dear readers, grab a cup…
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Pincushion cactus flower in Sabino Canyon outside Tucson, Arizona (#FOTD)
Sharing another photo from hubs’ and my attempt to hike in Sabino Canyon a week or so ago (see a few more pix from that aborted hike here). Note to self: do not hike at midday in Tucson in the summer. Sad that I have to leave myself notes about something that should be obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than a cactus, but here we are. Before we slogged back to the car to avoid heatstroke, we snapped a few pix of the local flora, including this adorable pincushion cactus. It’s just a phone pic, and taken in the bright midday sun (see aforementioned note to self), so…
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Photos from Sabino Canyon Recreation Area (#FOTD)
Hubs and I visited Sabino Canyon for the first time yesterday. We only made it about a half mile on the trail before the heat sent us scurrying (OK, plodding) back to our air-conditioned car. I hear tell there’s a lake and running water further up the trail, but we’ll see that another time, when it isn’t in the 90s and monsoon-humid. Hot or not, it was lovely out in the desert. We’ve had tons of rain–the wettest July on record–so the desert is lush and green and smells of fresh rain and creosote. The cacti are plumped up, and we even saw tadpoles in a puddle along the trail.…
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Passion flowers at the Tucson Botanical Gardens (#FOTD)
Long-suffering husband and I visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens yesterday for the first time since December (see pix from that trip here and here). We’re having a wet monsoon season, so we hoped for lots of flowers–and got our wish. Their butterfly garden includes these wonderful passion vines twining around the trunks of huge mesquite trees. I love the intricate detail of passion flowers–so lovely after a couple of months of dry, scorching heat. Posted for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
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The Ancient Pueblo Ruins of Wupatki National Monument
When I lived in Flagstaff, I was about half an hour from the pueblo ruins of Wupatki National Monument. In this post, I’ll share some photos as well as some links in case you’d like to learn more about this wonderful place. This post is part of Anita’s Amazing Stonework photo challenge. Please click on each image to see the entire picture. For some reason, my WordPress theme cuts off parts of some pictures. Wupatki preserves several pueblos built by the Ancient Pueblo People sometime between 500 and about 1000 AD. The structures are built from the local red sandstone and mortared in place. The fact that these structures are…
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Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park
If you’ve hung around on this blog for very long, you’ve probably figured out that I love photo challenges (see just about any of my photo posts for evidence). Well, I just found a new one, the Amazing Stonework challenge over on the For the Love of blog. Anita’s goal is, “to highlight the artwork created by builders of long ago.” I’m fascinated by old stone buildings, from millennium-old pueblos and cliff dwellings to the midcentury brick homes in my Tucson neighborhood, so I’m excited to participate in this challenge. I’m also excited to use this challenge as an opportunity to share photos from places that relate in some way…
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#SoCS: In which your intrepid blogger whines about the Arizona heat
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; this week’s prompt is, “hat/het/hit/hot/hut.” Me, about an hour ago: I haven’t participated in SoCS for awhile. I’m tired and sleep-deprived, and I really don’t feel like revising my novel, so I’ll hop over to Linda Hill’s blog and see what today’s prompt is. Maybe it’ll be something I can relate to. It includes the word, “hot.” There’s a massive heat wave in the Western U.S. And I live in Arizona. Yeah, I can relate. We’re on about day 6 of temperatures over 110. It was 113 yesterday here in Tucson,…
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#CWBC: Pair of barrel cacti
This week’s theme for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge (CWBC) is Pairs. We found this pair of barrel cacti in the East unit of Saguaro National Park, about a half hour from where I live. Since moving to Tucson last October, I’ve found myself falling in love with cacti. They are fascinating, and I’m in awe of their ability to survive in such unforgiving conditions.
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#FOTD: Budding cactus
Today’s entry for Cee’s flower of the day photo challenge is a simple snapshot, taken while I was on a lunchtime walk at work. It’ll win no prizes, but I couldn’t walk past this adorable blooming cactus without capturing it. Since moving to Tucson, I’ve become completely charmed by cacti. I’ve always been a lush cottage garden sort of person, but now that I’m surrounded by desert flora, I’m learning to appreciate the shapes and textures of these amazing plants. See the hint of rust and red in the spines? And the cheerful, whimsical shape of the plant and its pointy buds? I plead guilty to personifying plants, but this…
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#CMMC: Up close and personal with a saguaro
The theme for Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge (CMMC) this week is Closeup or Macro. I fell in love with macro photography years ago, when I first bought a decent point and shoot with a macro setting and started taking closeups of flowers. I still take closeups of flowers, but it’s fun to get in close with other subjects too. I’ve written on here before about noticing the details of life and of seeing life through a macro lens, and the older I get, the more value I see in those practices. I live in the Sonoran Desert, home of the saguaro cactus. They are everywhere down here–along the freeway, on…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
