Still, when the world doesn't effortlessly look pretty, you have to try harder. That's just an obvious platitude--but it feels so good to put a platitude into practice. So far I've have the best luck watching a low sun pick off grassy ridgelines.
One day we hiked up one of these gullys to the very edge of this fern-like topography. To the west the climb began in earnest up to the big peaks in the Santa Rita range. We returned by walking down a continuous grassy ridge. What easy walking, despite no real trail!
Looking at these soft curves I couldn't help but think of a young man doing a little girl-watching--scrutinizing, waiting and watching for that perfect set of curves.
There are red rocks around here due to copper ore. Oddly enough, I have probably gotten more of a kick out of looking for a few special red rocks than looking at an entire landscape of red sandstone on the Colorado Plateau. I leave the explanation of this as an exercise to the reader.
Sometimes the shape of rock formations surprises you, especially if they don't belong here. This rock formation seems to belong to the Chiricahua Mountains which are 80 miles east of here.
At a mountain pass I saw a tree that is common in this area take on an uncommon shape. It reminded me of the trees on the Kenyan Plateau in the movie Out of Africa, which is movie whose scenic backdrop fits this area.
And so the search goes. Man and Dog, always on the hunt for beauty.
