For the past decade, I've headed to Arizona in midwinter to visit family and catch a respite from cold weather. Each year, as I leave its warm, dry air to return to my snowy home, I'm told, "You really should come when the desert is in bloom. It's spectacular."
Each year, in response, I roll my eyes. Why would I visit Arizona when spring is in the air in Minnesota? And how can a desert, by its very nature, be "in bloom"?
I claim no grand foresight into this year's weather; a busy schedule had prompted my later-than-usual, mid-April trip to Arizona. I was simply looking for warmth.
What I found was color. For a winter-weary Midwesterner, it was a revelation.
Ocotillo brightened the horizon, its spider-like arms topped with luscious red-orange blossoms waving in the periwinkle blue sky. Hedgehogs flashed their colors over the rocky earth: red, yellow, pink. Small neon flowers peeked out from the chollas. Prickly pear blossoms burst with stunning hues. All popped into the sepia tones of the desert as though hand-colored to order.
Ahh. Now this was the desert in bloom.
These plant names now fall off my tongue with ease, but not so with my first glimpse of the blossoms. I was at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, on the outskirts of Tucson, surrounded by more than 1,200 types of plants and 56,000 specimens on 21 acres, on the edge of Saguaro National Park. There was desert, and desert only, as far as the eye could see. Saguaros, the giant cactuses, many with multiple arms, stood like sentries on the horizon. (Its blossoms are the Arizona state flower.) Like a child learning to talk, I pointed at the blossoms and repeated their names, a lesson in the language of Southwest flowers.
On the hunt for blooms
There was no better place for my education than the 60-year-old Desert Museum, which puts a new spin on what most of us think of as a museum. Much of what it offers is outside, not inside, and most of it is alive. Very alive, in fact, as anyone careless enough to brush against the barbs of a cholla would discover. Alive as in rattlesnakes and scorpions. This isn't a theme park: A trip down these paths needs caution. (Leave the toeless sandals at home.) Part arboretum, part zoo (with coyotes, bobcats and pig-like javelinas), part aviary and hummingbird sanctuary, well, you get the drift. Not your usual museum.