The greatest reason The Roaming Boomers® love to roam is to simply admire creation.  To us, the world is God’s museum of art.

Today, we spent time in the Scottsdale collection.

Photo from Dancing Cowgirl Design

To me, there’s a certain nostalgia about the southwest.  Perhaps it was the  steady diet of western-style television shows from my childhood.  Why, I even had me a red cowboy hat and a six-shooter on my hip.  I shot my dastardly younger brother countless times for robbing banks, holding up stage coaches, and for just being a general rabble-rouser.

This picture is not me, but you get the idea.  Right?

Today, Carol and I were out for a short hike in the Sonoran desert.  I snapped this scene with my trusty iPhone, and, as I’m feeling a little nostalgic at the moment, I decide to give my photograph a nostalgic, “old-time” photographic look as well.

Less I digress further, let me share this scene from God’s Scottsdale Collection.

It Memorial Day.  That means that it’s foresummer here in Arizona.  Arizona has 5 seasons: winter, spring, foresummer (hot & dry), summer (monsoon season), and fall.  Forsummer in Scottsdale is generally a period of drought, temperatures climbing in the low-100s, and humidity levels hanging way down around 10%.  It’s dry!

In this scene, we are walking through one of Scottsdale’s countless washes.  A wash is a dry river bed.  However, when the monsoonal rains come to the desert in the summer, these washes will be filled with raging waters heading downstream eventually making their way into the Verde river and ultimately the ocean.

As we walk along the path, everywhere you look there’s a mother and father Gamble’s Quail fluttering about.  The skies are full of flying dove, and nearly every step finds a little scurrying reptile.

I don’t know the species, but there exists here a little reptile that resembles a miniature dinosaur.  I smile every time I see one.  As you approach, he lifts up off of his belly, kind of like those cars that are popular in the southwest that are lifted up by hydraulics.  He tilts his head to the side, and in my mind, his tongue is hanging out of his mouth like a dog’s does with his head hanging out of a car window.  And, away he runs like a bat-out-of-hell.  I love it!

We didn’t see any  today, but this desert is also home to the oft-feared Diamondback Rattlesnake.  We’ve encountered quite a few since our days in the desert.   We’ve learned that they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.  And, perhaps most importantly, their famous rattles make you aware of the snake’s presence  long before you encounter them visually.

As you can see, there are two mighty saguaro in this scene.  The one on the left stands proudly with arms stretched towards the sky, while the saguaro to his right is awkwardly standing with all of its arms pointing down.  Most unusual, me thinks.

In the middle of the scene, just to the left of the pathway, a dead ironwood tree stands.  With its incredibly strong wood, this twisted overseer will likely remain a part of the landscape for decades to come.  There is a massive packrat nest built at the base the tree.  We don’t like packrats, they are very destructive.  In fact, they recently destroyed one of our out-door pillows seeking goodies for their nest.  Those little buggers!

Lastly, if you gaze into the background, you can see Black Mountain rising 3,398 feet into the sky.  You can’t see it in this photograph, but Black Mountain is unique in that half of the mountain is covered in Precambrian metamorphic rocks, while the other half is covered with massive Precambrian granite boulders.  In fact, it is in this very landscape that the world-famous Boulders Resort resides.

Well, I suppose I rambled on enough.  I hope you enjoyed your docent tour of God’s Museum of Art: Scottsdale Collection.

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