For the last couple months we have been treated to a cacophony of color while the cactus has been blooming.  Never having experienced this I thought I would like to share with you what I have learned about this very interesting species.

The top picture is of Hedgehog cactus.  It gets flowers in a crown around the top of the plant. Next up is an Ocatillo which only gets leaves when it rains and then flowers.  The rest of the time it is just spiky sticks. This one is a Purple Prickly Pear.  I read that the color is to deter animals from eating it.   Here is another variety of Hedgehog cactus.  These flowers start out as big red buds then open to huge white flowers. More Prickly Pear.Organ Pipe These next two are pictures of Pine Cone Cholla which hasn’t flowered yet but it is interesting because it looks like bunched of pine cones.  This is a succulent, the Century Plant.  It sprouts this huge flower each year.  Notice how tall it is! More Organ Pipe cactus.  Pink Prickly Pear.  These elongated paddles are called Beavertail  cactus.     Anyway, hope you can see some of the beauty of these plants.  This desert is sure “blooming like a rose.”

You may well ask, “What have you been up to since we last heard from you?”  Short answer is enjoying the wonderful weather and scenery of the desert Southwest.  Long answer follows.

It took us a couple months to get all moved in and settled in our fab new house.  And suddenly it was Thanksgiving and subsequent holidays.  When we lived in North Carolina our friends, the Tymas, came to our house for Thanksgiving right before they moved to Phoenix.  That was 18 years ago but they reciprocated in fine style by having us and our nephew, Matt, for a feast we will not soon forget.  Thanks, guys!!

Christmas came and so did our daughters.  We loved our adventures during the visit.

The Desert Botanical Garden at night was magical!  We enjoyed dinner and music and froze our buttooties off.

 Desert Botanical Garden at night

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.  The beautiful and FLW style of bizarre.  We missed the Lego model of house and grounds.

We also went for a hike at the White Tank Mountains but apparently I didn’t take any pictures of that.  Saw petroglyphs and just had a really enjoyable day.

We were sorry to see the girls leave but eagerly awaited Mark’s brother Doug and wife Susie’s arrival.  While they were here we helped Matt remodel his new house.  Tore down walls, painted the whole thing, put in new woodwork, and laid down new flooring.  Haven’t worked that hard in a long time!  It looks great now, though.

Ok  I have to confess now.  When she was here, Kallie took all my pictures off my iPad so I could download the new operating system and I don’t know how to retrieve them without all of them reloading.  Soooo, I’m going to post this blog and switch to the laptop and figure this out.  Be back soon!!

Here’s the house, the living room, the office, the patio, and the Beverly Hills Cat Mansion.  Additionally we have two bedrooms and two baths so come visit!!!

Whoops!  Forgot this in the last post,but here we are in Arizona! What is here?  The Grand Canyon, Suguaro National Park, the Hopi Nation, the Navajo Nation, the Hualapai Nation, the Havasupai Nationand so many others.  Mark’s brother Doug has a son who lives here and he visits several times a year.  So he found a place where he thought we could winter.  The place is west of Phoenix and is called Pueblo El Mirage.  It is a 55+ Golf and RV resort.  It is incredibly beautiful if you love the desert and we fell in love at first glance.

Walking around the place we discovered a little village of Craftsman styled houses and made the leap and bought one.  I know, precipitate, but we love it here.  My brother says we had to look far and wide to find a place more conservative than North Carolina but our liberal roots haven’t been challenged too much here.  The school board is just as weird as the one in Raleigh, the sheriff is on trial for contempt of court, and the lady at Lowes doesn’t believe in CFL or LED light bulbs.  But the paper leans way left and we haven’t met many challenging people.  There are a bunch of houses with solar panels, they are working at saving water from the aforementioned Glen Canyon Dam, and a bunch of geezers like us leave in the summers saving on air conditioning costs.

Because I can’t figure out how to cut and paste on this page right now, I’ll add pix of the new place on the next post!

Just about everyone who lives or has visited the West has been to a dam somewhere.  So we came to Page, AZ and Glen Canyon Dam.  This enormous project began in the year 1956 which is also the year my brother was born, no connection.  It was completed in 1966 and did t completely fill up until 1983.  It collects water from the Colorado River and then distributes it to five states.  The dam was nearly destroyed in 1983 by floods but disaster was averted.  When the dam was started the first thing that was built was the bridge from one side to the other.  It shortened a 200 mile one way trip from one side to the other.  Wow!!  Lake Powell is the second largest artificial lake in the country and, as are all these reservoirs, is quite low.

Needless to say we were quite impressed with the dam, the lake and the town of Page which was specifically built for the workers but has remained a unique and picturesque place.

So I bet you all thought I forgot about posting but we have been living an even bigger adventure which we will get to soon.

after a wonderful stay in Salt Lake we rounded ourselves up and went to St. George which is one of our favs.  We intended to hike in Snow Canyon but our wimpiness asserted itself when we arrived and it was 98 degrees in the shade.  So we settled for a drive through the canyon and following are some pics of the great geological scenery

This last picture was the sight of a great epiphany for me.  My best bud, Suzan, and I came to what we referred to as “boot camp” when we turned 60.  The camp has since gone on to become one of the spas for The Biggest Loser!  Anyway, every morning we would go on a hike and one day we went here.  Aside from it’s astounding beauty, this little slot canyon was a special Native American place.  They carved the steps across the bottom and up the wall above the waterfall.  Back in my college days I did a lot of rock climbing and this seemed like a big challenge for me so I asked our hike leader if we could do it.  The wall on the right we climbed is about 15 feet high and the waterfall is about 12 feet tall.  After I got to the top of the falls this overwhelming sense of accomplishment came over me and I refer to that day when I think I can’t do something.  I guess we’re never too old!

Back home and it is still a beautiful place to visit.  The KOA is way downtown past the fairgrounds and in a place which was pretty much a no-man’s-land when I was growing up.  Now Salt Lake City has exploded and is one huge megalopolis from before the top of Parley’s Canyon clear past the airport.  Such a change! Years ago my dad started sleuthing through the old buildings at Fort Douglas.  He found things like old playing cards, button, bottles and other discarded stuff.  Because he wanted to preserve the Fort from the encroachment of the University of Utah, he started a museum detailing the history of the military in Utah and he worked hard to get many of the old historical buildings on the National Historic Register.  Because of this, after his death, the military named the museum building in his honor.  Outside there is a nice little park with various pieces of equipment like this howitzer that Mark was responsible for aiming during his stint in the army.  The Post Chapel is where we were married so very long ago.  It has been “updated” to include green carpeting and removal of the pews, and the original slate roof is gone, but it still stands!  Next we are off to Southern Utah!