A View from the Top

I am back from my week in Tucson! I stayed in the Marriott Starr Pass resort up in the foothills, which was lovely and posh beyond words. I had a spa treatment, swam every afternoon in the lazy river, ate delicious meals, and oh yeah, went to a conference. :) I didn't actually take a lot of photos, but I did get a few.


This was my view every morning. It was still cool then, but by 7am the temperature started shooting up. It was 105 most afternoons. Yikes!


The view in the late afternoon. That's Tucson in the distance.

Three Desert landscapes

The desert plants make the most of monsoon season -- everything turns so green, and so fast!






My aunt told me the name of these octopus-looking cactus, but I'm not sure how to spell it. Ocotilla?



Looks like a movie set, but it's not!

Desert in the Morning Sun

Best viewed in large.

The sad news is, it's actually hotter and more humid here in Chicago than it was in the desert. That just doesn't seem fair!

Greetings from Tucson!

This mailbox post cracked me up every day for the last four days. I'll have prettier pictures once I get home tonight, but I don't think I'll have funnier ones.

Approaching Storm

It's monsoon season in Tucson, and so every afternoon it rains, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. You can see the storms off in the distance, rolling over the mountains, heading for the city. Yesterday I was in Saguaro National Park shooting, and I got a closer-up eyeful.



Best viewed in large size.

I did get back to my hotel in time. Good thing, because I didn't bring an umbrella! Who would, to the desert?

A shock of pink

From the Arid Greenhouse at the Chicago Botanic Garden, taken March 8, 2007. I don't know about you, but I needed a nice jolt of color to savor today.

Because there is only so much snow one person can shoot

Fuzzy Cactus



Prickly Cactus

Thank goodness for greenhouses!

Cactus and Flowers

Not a sight I expected to see in Chicago in January! But the Chicago Botanic Garden offers up many surprises all year long; today's shots are from the Arid Greenhouse that I visited yesterday.

There are more unusual (to me!) cactus shots available in the Chicago Botanic Garden set.