Arizona.
The desert in snow. Like a sea on fire or a tree growing on a rock, some things just don’t seem to mix. And when they do, it’s weird. A little jarring. The kind of thing that can alter the DNA of one’s perception, which is always a good thing. Please, give me that. Crack me open and pour in a cup of Never-seen, a hunk of Unknown, and a dash of “Huh?”
When we pulled into Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona, the terrain was a familiar Sonoran desert scene: dusty, crusty brown, and fringed in the muted grey-greens of juniper, sagebrush, and puffy cottonwood trees. We rode our bikes up-down-all around a high loop in the Coconino National Forest (a desert forest!), during which I learned I am a royal chickenshit when my bike finds itself on anything other than pavement or dirt. (Hell, thy name is Gravel!) But when not terrified by the natural rollercoaster of rock, sand, and eye-gouging shrubbery (my heart going full steam lub-dubbery), it was a desert ride to remember.
By evening, winds stoked angry clouds, and the first flecks of snow began to whirl like ash from a white scalded sky. The heat from the desert day shrank lizard-like into the cold desert night, and by morning the DNA of my perception had changed. The desert in snow. A strange marriage of star-crossed lovers fully draped in a veil of white. Cacti transformed into funny whiskered snowmen; yucca into narwhals, their shoots piercing a sea of sparkling fluff. And in Sedona – striking, vibrant, sexy Sedona- the red cliffs and ragged mesas looked like massive hunks of half-eaten Devil’s Food Cake, white icing dripping down the sides.
Snow aside, the desert is full of characters. You could write a classic Western opera on the cacti alone. You’ve got your saguaro, tall and proud, like a hydra-headed sheriff. The deputy might be a squat, jovial barrel cactus. Then there’s the ocotillo, your villain, all spidery and barb-wired, with its sneaky thick-fingered sidekick, the cholla, quick to stick with daggered burrs. The Joshua trees are your preachers, arms raised in prayer for the souls of the sinners. And the prickly pear are your busomy damsels flashing their purple succulence, batting thorny lashes. Coyotes hide in the wings crooning a sad, hungry ballad, and hawks saw thin rusty chords in the rafters. Winds jangle like spurs.
Of course there’s more to Arizona than its deserts. There are some cool towns we love revisiting, like Jerome. Built up high on a mountain overlooking the Verde Valley, it’s a strange kind of slinky, living ghost town, all switchbacks and steep streets lined with both galleries and crumbling facades. And then there’s Bisbee, an artsy old mining town near the border of Mexico. The massive red open copper mine could swallow whole the charming historic district. Haunted hotels, cracked walls, and antique shops stipple the spindled town, its tiers spun out and stitched together by thousands of stone steps that zig and zag up the mountain like ivy.
We’ve got another ghost town (or two) on our horizon. In Texas! We’re headed to Big Bend along the Rio Grande. More desert opera. Maybe a tarantula or two. Big skies and brazen stars.