Springtime in the desert

We spent last week in Tucson, Arizona, hiking, taking part in the protests and generally enjoying being in the southwest.

Pictured is our haul from the fruitful and well-irrigated desert: local produce and meat from a farmer's market, with juicy lemons from our host's backyard. The rancher who sold us the meat was quite a character. We asked him what was freshest, and he felt around in his cooler then pulled out that lamb chop.

"People in Iowa think they feed the country," he told us. "All they put out is feed corn and some scrawny cattle that get fattened in feed lots. California is the real food producer."

We went on to discuss the merits of grass-fed over grain-fed meat -- he had some spiel about omega-this vs. omega-that, but all I can tell you is that was a damn tasty piece of lamb.

The desert around Tucson is full of fascinating stuff: parks, museums, saguaros, cholla, the soon-to-be-demolished biosphere 2, nuclear missile silos, a world-class go kart track, and airplane boneyards. Quite a haul for your average postmodern tourist.

Twenty minutes by car and a short hike out of town, you can be surrounded by desert or deep in a cayon: all teeming with life, and (in April, at least) in full bloom. We found hares, snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, coyotes, and little gopher-like things -- a tremendous amount of life by any measure.

I'm constantly amazed by the variety of landscapes in this country, and having visited only 33 of the 50 states, I really look forward to experiencing the rest.