I found this hanging basket in one of my favorite places in the world, Jerome, Arizona. Here magenta petunias hang out in perfect harmony with bright red geraniums. When I was a teenager, I agonized over whether parts of my outfit color-matched. Red did not “go” with pink and definitely not with magenta! Since I’ve grown…
It was a cold, sunlit morning in November when I took this photograph of the crystal water at Red Rock Crossing. Behind me were the magnificent totems of Cathedral Rock, but I chose to look down, instead. The soft sandstone had been worn smooth by the creek that ebbs and flows according to the season,…
FIRE IN BROKEN WATER is the 3rd book in the Pegasus Quincy mystery series. I wrote the book to explore the water wars that are still ongoing in Arizona. But it’s a mystery, too! Including a prize Friesian stallion, a child’s sled that may be a key to a deadly arson fire, and a clan…
One of the amazing attributes of the dry washes in Red Rock country is that they are used as major thoroughfares when water isn’t flooding down them. Rabbits, coyotes, deer, even a mountain lion or two, travel at night through what becomes a hikers’ highway in the sunlight! There are so many worlds that we…
I found this old bucket in a Gold King Mine back lot. For those of you who haven’t been to Jerome, the Gold King Mine is a three-acre graveyard for all things mechanical: old ice cream wagons, belt-driven band saws, trucks and cars and tractors that are slowly melting back into the environment, one rust…
One of the fun things about setting a fictional novel in a real locale is that I get to describe favorite places of mine. The setting for PERIL IN SILVER NIGHTSHADE, Red Rock State Park, has to rank right up there. This park was purchased for a state park about 25 years ago from the…
Cloud edges in the desert appear sharper, because the air is dryer. A monsoon thunderhead can build in minutes, billowing thousands of feet into the air as you watch, and no two are alike. A favorite cloud-watching spot of mine is Sunset Point, about an hour north of Phoenix. Here, the overlook vista plunges you…
I’d looked forward to seeing the immense rock on the Navajo Reservation near Kayenta, Arizona. I wasn’t disappointed. This volcanic monolith rises over 1500 feet, straight up. Agaathla Peak, meaning “much wool” in the Navajo language, is so named because of the tufts of deer and sheep wool caught in its sharp rock edges and…
It was a sweltering hot afternoon when I encountered this pond in the midst of the Arizona desert. What a delight, this surprise of the water where there shouldn’t be any. I valued the clarity of the mirrored reflection in the water where I received the gift of two mountain views, one pointing toward the…
The question is not what you look at, but what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau. I encountered this dry bear grass waving in the wind that always seems to blow near Flagstaff, Arizona, on a hot summer day. The grass became a metaphor for the winds blowing through my own life. Sometimes we bend…