Dreams, Moments, Travels
With my cough in tow, Caroline and I are on our way to New Mexico for the weekend. It is almost too late by the time we take off from Phoenix; we expect to arrive in Socorro near 1:00 a.m. Our reservation cannot be canceled at this point so we keep on going. Today’s photo looks back west as we drive east on Interstate 40; the mountains on the right are the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona.
As the Beverly Hillbillies said, California is the place I oughta be. These tasty organic berries screamed buy me when we were last in California. Farmers’ markets alone should drag us the 350 miles west to live in the Golden State, but there are also Ramen shops, ethnic shopping areas, films that only show in New York and California, beaches, boba tea, Disneyland, Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios, San Francisco just up the road, Redwoods, museums galore, organic handmade cheeses, the Monterey Aquarium, Highway 1, real Chinese food, Death Valley and so much more. More, such as traffic, lots of traffic, rents requiring slavery to your dwelling, big fires, and earthquakes, but where else are you going to find imagawayaki, Little India, a Vietnamese shopping mall, body surfing, yellow raspberries in April, and Japanese gardens all in one day?
Today, the 4th day of the 4th month, I turned 44. This celebratory photo was taken a week before in Santa Barbara, California, where very much to my surprise, this cake, along with a rendition of the Birthday song, was all of a sudden in front of my face. I needed a few moments before I realized this was in my honor. Keeping Caroline out of the loop helped as she looked as surprised as I did. My cousin Nancy, Aunt Jean, Daniel, Theresa, Aunt Ann, Uncle Woody, and good old Boyd were all present and made for the best surprise party I have ever had.
I am “hopefully” recovering from bronchitis. For two weeks now I have been taken out by this upper respiratory affliction that has made me double over in pain from my chest to my hips as I cough, cough, and coughs some more. This cloud represents my lungs, just a few days ago my chest felt like a monsoon.
I’d like to tell you what type of tree is bearing so many of these beautiful flowers but my energy, curiosity, and health just won’t let me care. It’s on the tip of my tongue, don’t think it’s mesquite, surely ain’t pine or saguaro. Ok, here comes Caroline to the rescue, it must be palo verde.
These are not really patio flowers. This was not meant to be some poor April Fool’s joke either. It is just that these blooms are from a cactus that lives on our balcony and Caroline nor I know what kind of cactus it is. I have featured this cactus blooming before, twice I think, but no one else has offered up the name of the species, so here are two patio flowers until we know better.