This fall, through a forest of giant cacti in Saguaro National Park meets spent a childhood dreams devouring Zane Grey novels a sunset ride on horseback. But also that perfect ride has competition for my favorite moment in Arizona. Can nothing wake up actually above canyon rim on the Grand to a swirling Blizzard which resolves to a double Rainbow? Or chasing the sunset in Monument Valley from a mitten-shaped sandstone formation to another?
For many years of the visits I have my ideal, a-to-two week road trip to Arizona's highlights distilled. I have it road blocks north of Flagstaff in all seasons, traveled, just for occasional snow in the winter and summer days in the 110 s from Phoenix to the South. Here are my favorites.
SOUTHERN DESERT MISSION: how I my horse back towards the trail controlled shieber to take one last picture when I end a two-hour ride in the desert outside Tucson, approached Remington.
The white quarter my mind must have read Bobbi Houston riding horse. Forget the photo. I struggled down Gallop momentum back into the sunset. This is the effect of the southern Arizona Sonoran Desert washed on silence and subdued grey green shapes. The deserts are fascinating as no other landscape. But are anything but empty. Thousands of Saguaros here have stood Sentinel for centuries. Start not even your iconic weapons can more than 200 years life and grow until they are about 70.
Better place, is to not see the Saguaros and friends lost your desert fuzzy Cholla and spindly ocotillo plant, fluorescent green Palo Verde and mesquite trees – as in the Saguaro National Park has its districts two, a few miles on both sides of the city of Tucson. Each individual pullout on Gates pass road, the best route to the Western Park is worth a photo.
South of Tucson on I-19, as close to the Mexican border which is miles to kilometers, which is unlikely grand characters for a different kind of presence in this desert: Mission San Xavier del BAC. Built in the 1700s of Franciscan brothers, the dazzling white Spanish colonial church of even Minister Tohono o' odham - reservation.
Coming in from Sun-drenched environment which dark mission, scented candle baroque interior is dazzling, every inch covered vividly painted faux architectural details. Complete loneliness must have been good company for your sculptors of the Saints and angels.
PHOENIX OASIS: A few hours is North along I-10 by flat desert sprouting moonlike peaks, Phoenix, an oasis of clean modernity in this Dreamscape. Favorite spots in the area are the heard Museum with its superb collection of native American art and the resorts and art galleries of Scottsdale, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Phoenix.
I always try fit into two mini road journeys from Phoenix. If I have a day suburb to remote old Apache trail goes West within a few kilometres east of the city. The trail rises in the Superstition Mountains, Cottonwood-shaded canyons and skirting Lakes. In the spring when the cacti know purple and gold bloom, it is the Western equivalent cherry blossom time.
If I is only a few hours before the flight from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, my last desert escape South Mountain Park, a 10-minute drive south of downtown and its winding road up to Dobbins lookout. With look at past the Saguaros in the entire metropolis and its 360 degree desert cradle, this is the place for a South central Arizona sunset, bar none.
RED ROCKS everywhere: Red is the color of my "can't miss" stops on a loop over the Northern deserts where Navajo and Hopis have lived for centuries. Water reflected Vermillion cliffs in the silence of Lake Powell and together with the sunsets color you Monument Valley, the painted desert and Juniper Forests of Sedona. But my perfect sunset was on a secluded stretch towards the remote Canyon de Chelly, on a fragrant Sage covered Mesa as daylight fades from pale pink to indigo on the continuous horizon.
The loop starts with a detour off less than two hours north of Phoenix I 17 by Sedona and shaded Oak Creek Canyon - the masses start dropping off here. Then it is a mile crunching, mind-clearing with the East, petrified forest National Park (includes the Badlands painted desert), and in Navajo tribal land to Canyon de Chelly North. My choice spots along its southern edge drive 800 metres from the Creek are slim the otherworldly spider rock jutting-lined Canyon floor and White House ruin. The walk to the White House ruin takes you past fields and pastures to cliff dwellings carved high in the steep rock wall of the Canyon centuries ago. Mystery shrouds the old Pueblo peoples who created these structures and others through the Gorges of the four corners area.
From there, loop back Northwest to Monument Valley tribal Navajo Park, which spans the Arizona Utah State line. A short drive Selbstgeführte overlooks spectacular sandstone monoliths in forms, by a W up to mittens.
Rotate a last stop before South is the realm. Lake Powell, boat party headquarters in summer, everything is selling in winter, its wide a kaleidoscope of stone, water and back again to reflect. (Boat trips run throughout the year.) The other end of the intimate scale is Antelope slot Canyon, a crack in the sandy plateau to barely wide enough for one person. The Gorge is accessible only with a guide; Hiking it felt like to go through an hourglass cursor at the beginning of time.
GRANDEST OF ALL: Theodore Roosevelt said everyone should see the Grand Canyon, Americans but once is not enough. It is different at sunset and sunrise in a snow storm and the Moonlight whether you alone or the hordes of tour bus. Endless forms, colours and depths can from every viewpoint along the canyon's 20-mile-plus South Rim drive be seen. You can't help but feel small.
My latest, unlikely perfect Arizona moment on a dreary stretch of Interstate between Tucson and Phoenix came early fall evening. A splitter the Moon towers over the pitch-black expanse of desert, during mountains in the Western horizon a low silhouette against the last yellowish tint of set Sun cut. Spellbound over I pulled up the sky all Sapphire enabled and broke stars in the still wide.
Back home, I swapped leaves that smell like the desert Lavender in my drawers for crushed creosote. When I catch a hint, I close my eyes and disappear into the desert.
By news.yahoo.com
AP - this November 28, 2009 photo courtesy of Giovanna Dell'Orto shows a late fall sunset as it the myriad... colors
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