Beauty and Pain in Arizona

I’m spending a couple days with my friend Anna, and even though we haven’t seen each other since high school it’s like we were never apart. When I got to her house in Green Valley after a long day’s drive, she had a delicious, healthy dinner and glass of wine waiting for me. It’s all I could do to not drop to one knee and propose right then.

She lives in a subdivision, which sounds boring, but it’s not. Each house has a personality:

green valley arizona

What Anna wakes up to every morning. Don’t hate her.

green valley arizona

Christmas Cactus

green valley arizona

More Christmas, Arizona Style

The landscaping is stark and gorgeous:

green valley arizona

Ditch your lawnmower.

I love the shapes and textures:

green valley arizona

Like tasty little fruit.

green valley arizona

Barbie pineapple!

green valley arizona

Barbie javelins!

The family that sold the land to the developers included a provision that this cemetery, which sits smack in the middle of the houses, remain:

green valley arizona

In Through the Out Door

green valley arizona

Elaborate graves…

green valley arizona

… and not.

green valley arizona

Alberto isn’t thirsty in the afterlife.

Here’s your photography tip for the day: Use a zoom lens to shoot sharp plant life.

See the round ends of these branches?

green valley arizona

Ouch

If you accidentally lean into them they pop off and hang from your body like evil, spiked mice.

As if the pain of the impalement wasn’t enough, I then had to get them out. There was a moment when I was pulling one clump from my bare thigh and I thought my skin might actually rip. The spines clung so tenaciously that they pulled my flesh out to resemble spikes itself, like a skin Mohawk.

I won’t be sharing that picture. You’re welcome.

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2 Comments

  1. OW! (to the pain)

    Ooo-ahhh (to the photos)

    What an awesome pitstop!
    Milli Thornton (@MillivrsTravels) recently posted…Dinner with AbdulMy Profile

    • deonne at 11:51 am #

      Milli – Love your comment, thank you! Hoping this next Scampabout (late May) will be less painful but no less beautiful, ha.

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