Bonus Arizona whites

I’d planned to take part in the Lens-Artists Challenge today but we just bought access to Le Tour de France, so that’s five hours or so where we’re glued to the screen. Yesterday morning was my Friday grocery shopping and cleaning day for my parents, but in the afternoon my mom fell, so I was there twice more, the second time to help with dinner and then watch most of game 7 of the remaining Stanley Cup semifinal game between Tampa Bay and the NY Islanders, which also meant I didn’t get much done at home. Tomorrow my parents will be here to celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary, so a bit of prep called for there as well. All of which means I have plenty to do or to distract me and the challenge for Lens-Artists isn’t a straightforward one today. So I’m sharing three bonus white photos for Life in Colour: white, all of which come from Arizona.

This photo of a snowy egret amuses me as it appears the bird is being lifted to heaven by and in the ray of light. In case you wondered, it didn’t get that far but flew off elsewhere. 🙂

Not an artistic photo but it is an iconic one for desert dwellers. Humorous, but take it to heart and stay on the path!

This bee is living proof that the poisonous datura isn’t poisonous for bees and also has enormous, beautiful white flowers.

I hope you’re each having an enjoyable, relaxing weekend.

Snake, rattle, and roll

The desert is snake country as we were reminded along the trail at the visitors center at Saguaro National Park where we saw several of these signs. You can be sure I was thrilled to learn that of the 36 species of rattlesnakes that live in North and South America (rattlers are found nowhere else), 13 call Arizona home. That’s a good reason not to hike with headphones, since a rattle is the snake’s way of letting you know they’re there and would rather you weren’t. And since the desert “summer”, or at least the season when it’s hot enough for snakes to be out and about, lasts from April to October, it behooves a hiker to take a good deal of caution about where s/he puts hands and feet and to listen for that warning sound, something you can’t do with music or a podcast blaring in your ears.

As I was taking photos along the trail, my husband called to me, saying our daughter had found something I’d want to photograph. She’d first thought it was a plastic bag, but a closer look showed that it was a long, intact molting of a snake. Now I don’t know for a fact that it was from a rattlesnake but after having seen several of the warning signs, I think there’s a good chance that it was.

Rest stop

Long-distance driving requires periodic breaks so many highways have rest areas to make it easy and free. On the first day, I drove eleven and a half hours with two breaks for gas/bathroom. That made day two much shorter and easier.

About three hours along, I stopped at a Texas rest stop to switch from glasses to contacts. The stone building was built into a hill.

Inside was a presentation on the use of wind, although windmills looked quite different in the early days, like those on my grandparents’ farm in Nebraska.