Well, it's February and here I go again, longing for the desert. As the snow gets deeper, so do my thoughts on warmer, dryer places. In winter, I think about summer. On nights when the temperature is in the single digits, I like nothing better than to sit in front of the fire and plan a trip to Arizona or New Mexico. Every winter I check out travel books to the Caribbean, Belize, New Zealand or Bali. It all sounds so exciting, the aqua waters, steel drum bands, colorful sarongs, bare feet and MaiTai's. But, it's the cactus and succulents with fushia flowers, the sharp spines on the mighty saguaros, the prickly pear and jumping cholla in the vast Sonoran desert that stirs my wanderlust. Thoughts of this scene are what really thrill me!
Like right now, I'm picturing myself staying at a birding cottage, an adobe, in the Chiricahua mountains. I see a Roadrunner, zipping past a mama Gambel's Quail and her six young 'uns, and a coyote in the distance. Above me in the Chiracahua pine and sycamore trees are flycatchers, flickers, swallows and wrens. Mockingbirds and thrashers, warblers, sparrows and hummers. All singing different songs, at the same time. Oh! There's a Gila monster! And a desert tortoise too. And over there, a white-tailed deer is kissing an ocelot. (Like I said, this is my image).
I feel warmer in winter just thinking about these places in the desert southwest. The jewels in my world. Lands I will never get tired of reading about. Places I'll forever go to. Every year, for as long as I live.
But, for now, I will book mark this page, the one with the blooming Ocotillo, so vibrant orange red. It's time to wax my skis. There's a mountain here that's calling my name.
Are you day dreaming of places far and wide?
I have never been to the desert but now I really want to expereince the beauty of one :)
ReplyDeletei love the desert! such an amazingly foreign, alien landscape. i haven't been in such a long time, but I have been having dreams about it for a while. the bf has never been, i hope to remedy that someday! i always said i wanted to live in the desert... not necessarily forever, but for a while. long enough to really soak it all in and have it be a part of me.
ReplyDeleteanyway, i am not really 'dreaming' of much because i am going to be traveling abroad with a friend at the end of this month (yikes, not so far away!). so for now, i am going to enjoy every bit of snow we have, since we just had a blizzard. the woods were beautiful today when i went snowshoeing! it is somewhere around 40 degrees and sunny. just perfect!
I hope you get to your desert soon...
xo
I could do the desert now even though I live in one...still the AZ desert is spectacular...I am always dreaming of oceans...always xx
ReplyDeleteLove the desert.
ReplyDeleteLove your pics!
I've been longing for the desert too! Low desert of Arizona (Mojave) along the Colorado River and naturally, the red rock country of Utah as well as the Navajo Lands...
ReplyDeleteIn point of fact, I woke up three days ago after dreaming of photographing Monument Valley. The urge is so strong that I am leaving, next Tuesday, on a week long solo trip, to the February deserts of the Southwest. There, I'll marry the wind.
Wish you were coming with me. :)
XX
we are all called...aren't we?
ReplyDeletebeautiful sentiments...I love learning about "your ways"
we you know what I am dreaming about
lots to do before I go.....I have been wearing this smile for a week now
it will be on my face till I go...and then I will probably cry lol
love and light
It's all I've been thinking about for the past month as well! I'm with Plume, ever since visiting Mesa Verde last year, I've had a BIG yearning to head on over to Wildcat Trail, photograph the West Mitten Butte...then do some pawn shopping at Ship Rock!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pastel & I see a mountain lion calling my name...
YES! I just wrote of wanting to run away to the desert and WRITE! Nice to find you here!
ReplyDelete