|
March 31, 2008
The project I have been on is finally slowing down; essentially to a standstill. It will go live next month. This raises a few issues. Since I have been doing eighteen hour days in the last month of the project I am kind of at a loose end as to what to do with all this copious spare time. I am also in the groove of the project's clock, rising at dawn and going to bed at midnight. On saturday morning to walk off the energy of having nothing to do upon waking I went up Camelback at the crack of dawn.
It is one of the popular city walks in Phoenix that is well travelled from dawn to dusk despite being a strenuous hike. There were many people walking up it at dawn including some who had hats with lights on them having obviously hit the trail prior to the sun leaking over the horizon. It is a beautiful walk with the strong red of dawn, the rocks shining a bright orange or a deep gold.
It has been an abnormally wet spring in the desert and the environment has responded appropriately. The flowers and trees are blooming with great vigour at the moment. You don't normally attach allergies and hay-fever to a desert, but the sniffles are a common ailment in Phoenix with all the pollen in that air at the moment.
The big winner has been the grasses, they have pretty much occupied every wet niche of the desert. A native Phoenician exclaimed with surprise to me recently that she has never seen the city walks so green before.
|
Cam,
what a great early morning shot. You don't get a sense of that from these shots of Camelback Mountain on Flickr. The country reminds me so much of South Australia.