I guess to truly be a fandango I would need a partner and maybe some castanets, but the loose rock fandango can get pretty elaborate with elements of modern dance, hokey pokey, ballet and of course, some jazz hands thrown into the mix. The expression “dance like no one is watching’’ comes to mind and I certainly hope so.
The photos are mine. I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!) I poke around in. Shin daggers are Agave schottii and the photo is of a very small clump. Multiply those by several hundred thousand and you get an idea of what you’re hiking in on many mesas and slopes. Yikes and ouch!
But hey, walking slowly and observing the flora, fauna, geology and distant vistas is the most wonderful thing. Life is beautiful. Yeah, it is.
In 1881 botanists John and Sara Lemmon were collecting and botanizing in an area called Rucker Valley in the Chiricahua…
Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is found from central California, up through the Pacific Northwest, throughout the Rockies (variety glauca) and southward down into our...
The concept of the mountain ranges of the southwest as sky islands goes back to at least 1943 when Natt N. Dodge wrote that...