We interrupted our trip to Orlando by stopping for Sabbath between Phoenix and Tucson.
We explored the countryside today under lovely skies, 78 degrees, a light breeze, and 11% humidity….
Desert as far as the eye can see, cactus everywhere…careful where you step!
But all is not lost. Even cacti have flowers now and then…and you know what comes with flowers….
What a place! Hardy doesn’t begin to describe what it takes to live out here!
We had so much fun exploring back roads outside Tucson…stopping when we saw color, stopping to admire the many, many variations of the saguaro (səˈwɑroʊ) cactus, and stopping to take in the view of miles and miles of prickly pear and other strange cacti. Notice the holes in the saguaro in the second photo below…probably made by woodpeckers for nesting purposes, which are usually taken over by other birds the next season.
We finished our tour in the shadow of the Santa Catalina Mountains that overlook Tucson, in a forest of saguaro cacti.
the BigTaxi 
“WOW…. That was Prickly Fun”
Thanks for taking us along 🙂
Hope nobody’s bleeding, Roger! Hang on, more’s comin….
In its own unique way, beautiful. Thanks, again!
Isn’ it amazing how God makes such an array of beauty…look at the range in the short distance we’ve come from the coast, Trudy! So glad we can share with you…
That looks so much like where we were, I want to be back there. You got to see more flowers blooming, they were just turning green when we left.
Apparently the best is yet to come for blossoms….just gotta come back!
Brian and I just got back Wednesday from that area. We love the beauty. Enjoy. We wish we had longer than a week. Next year 10 days!
Ha, just missed…amazing!
Hi Doug, God does indeed make an amazing array of life forms and different types of beauty. The photos of the red blossoms, including the one with the hummingbird, are not cactus flowers. They are the blossoms of the Ocotillo plant, which, while related to cacti, is actually a succulent. The border country of southern Arizona just above northern Mexico contains the highest concentration of hummingbirds in the United States. An amazing area. Keep these posts coming! Enjoying them a lot!
I know how much you love that area, Jim! Thanks for the clues…I still marvel that hummingbirds can survive in such a barren land. They obviously see more flowers there than I do!
Doug, I do love that part of the world and I’m a bigtime hummer aficionado. Lupe and I have kept feeders on our porch for years and we often marvel at how pugnacious they can be. I read an article from one of the hummingbird resorts near Tubac, Arizona, where two male hummers flew at each other and impaled each other on their beaks, falling to the ground in a death roll. I’ve never seen anything that gruesome, but I’ve seen one litle hummer we named Picotorito, or Little Bull with a Beak, who would sit in a nearby tree and charge hummers twice his size when they got too close to “his” feeders on our porch. No matter that he was smaller, they would always flee when he attacked. He was with us 8 or 10 years before he disappeared. He used to do remarkable courtship dances in the air.
!!!
Wonderful! The Ocotillo, tall skinny with the orange blossoms, finally bloomed in the Coachella Valley after the rain. Alas I am back in cold Ohio now. Snow in the forecast for tomorrow. Carol
Sounds like you caught the best part, Carol!