Morning at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Phoenix

On a bright March 15 morning, we traveled east from Phoenix on Highway 60 to visit the Boyce Thompson Arboretum where desert plants from around the world are featured in landscapes reflecting other desert environments –

Africa, Australia, South America, the Canary Islands, and the Chihuahuan desert of Mexico, west Texas, and southern New Mexico. My husband Bill and I got so carried away that we took well over 100 photos. Don't run, I'm only posting a couple here!

My favorite landscape and hike was the High Trail through the Upper Sonoran Natural Area.

The rocks looked like they’d been poured in blobs from some heavenly sand bucket.

We saw no rattlesnakes but we didn’t go looking for them. Besides, from what I understand rattlesnakes don’t show themselves until it gets a bit warmer.



The photo to the left is of a Blue Elf Aloe (pretty big for an elf wouldn't you say?)

And, check out the bark on the Mount Atlas Mastic Tree to the right. Beautiful even if it resembles anf elephants hide.


Several hours of browsing through the Arboretum aroused in us a “powerful thirst.” so we traveled to the historic mining town of Superior AZ – not quite a ghost town but almost -- with the only affluence reflected in the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

The town center was restaurant free, so we headed back to the highway and stopped at Buckboard City Café, which also boasts the world’s smallest museum.

The café’s charm lay not so much in its food which was hearty and good, but in its ranch town frontage, rustic interior,
and the amazing sculptures built from discarded household, farming, and mining paraphernalia.

The lovely piece to the right is called Hard Labor Falls, though I was hard pressed to find any falls trickling from those wheelbarrows.

Satiated, we were ready for our next journey, this one to Saguaro and Canyon Lakes, the subjects of my next post.

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2008

The Minneapolis Star Tribune named Beryl as a "Best of 2006 Minnesota Authors." Her book The Scent of God was a “Notable” Book Sense selection for April 2006. She is a columnist for the Cook County News Herald and has been published in anthologies and periodicals nationwide. See Road Writer for her travel blog.