Just over a week ago, there was still a good bit of snow on the Catalinas...
...but already the wildflowers are beginning to come out...
Yesterday afternoon, after work, we took a quick drive up to Picacho Peak State Park, about 40 minutes north of Tucson. It's been a relatively rainy winter, a perfect set-up for spring wildflowers in the desert. The first ones out are Mexican Gold poppies and some Mojave lupine.
(trivia--The Mexican Gold Poppy (Escholtzia mexicana) is named after Dr. Eschscholtz, a Russian surgeon & naturalist)
It's not every year that the desert blooms in such profusion;
we feel fortunate that our first Arizona spring has turned out to have such a colorful beginning...
If you want to keep 'up-to-date', there is actually an Arizona State Parks Ranger-Cam...
So--spring: get out and enjoy it!
Years ago, I clipped this cartoon:
I had it posted on a bulletin board in the classroom--it ended up being a gauge of sorts;only certain students would 'get it.'
The tyranny of virtual reality!--of gratuitous virtual reality, that is...
What a sad commentary--people spend so much time and money trying to re-create reality when we could just go outside and experience it first-hand...for free!
That last cartoon reminded me of an interview I heard with Carrie Brownstein (of the now defunct Olympia/Portland band Sleater-Kinney) talk about the video game Rock Band.
ReplyDeleteShe talks about the game is a lot of fun to play, but that she gets a creepy feeling that a generation of kids will end up spending hours and hours getting really good at a video game instead of really good at the instruments the video game simulates.
Interesting...makes me think of the video-game "Guitar Hero", which I played at a friend's house for the first time a few months ago.
ReplyDeleteFun...
But...wouldn't it be better to just go ahead and learn to actually play the guitar?