Sunset colors

We had a beautiful sunset this afternoon. I took these two photos within a couple of minutes of each other, as the sun was sinking lower and the sky was darkening. The plant is a yucca. ... Continue reading

Out of the ruins

We are fascinated by the ruins of previous civilizations and the mysteries they hold. They remind us of our own tenuous grasp on history and our shared search, with men and women of all ages, to discover the meaning of life, the existence of God, and how we should live upon this earth.In the ... Continue reading

Christmas snow

We don't often get snow in Tucson, and rarely on Christmas. But a winter storm blew through on the 26th and we woke up to a light dusting of snow, with flakes falling most of the day.The skies are clear today and most of the snow has disappeared. A hard freeze is coming tonight, so I need to ... Continue reading

Camping at Patagonia Lake

I live in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, where cactus is abundant and water is not. We have a federally-designated "navigable river" that is completely devoid of water except when a summer thunderstorm turns it into a raging, muddy torrent that only a drunk with a death wish would go boating ... Continue reading

Beauty and violence

Our desert monsoon has arrived, and the hills are turning from brown to green. The monsoon is a seasonal shift in our southern Arizona weather patterns, bringing moisture-laden air from Mexico to mix with the desert heat, resulting in sometimes-violent thunder storms. These powerful storms are ... Continue reading

Monsters among us

"How large the dreaded Gila Monster grows, no man can say." — from the forgettable 1959 B-movie, The Giant Gila Monster One of the Sonoran Desert's fascinating creatures is the Gila Monster (pronounced HEE-lah), the only poisonous lizard native to the US and one of the oldest lizards in North ... Continue reading

Desert Tortoise

We came home on Saturday from a week-long trip to Mexico to find a visitor waiting by our front door. This is a Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), one of the rarer sights here in the Sonoran desert. It has been more than a decade since the last one I spotted, an even larger (and older) tortoise ... Continue reading

Monsoon

When God divided out the wind and the water, and when he decided the path for rain and lightning, he also determined the truth and defined wisdom. God told us, "Wisdom means that you respect me, the Lord, and turn from sin." — Job 28:25-28, CEV Summer is hot in Arizona. Our prevailing winds come ... Continue reading