Summer is Our Winter

Here in the Sonoran Desert we usually see 100 days of temperatures in the 100s each summer.  When the mercury soars the desert dweller typically hibernates similar to what our neighbors elsewhere do during winter. Staying inside a bit more often, catching a matinee movie to avoid the heat of the day, adjusting workouts to dawn or dusk and finding covered parking whenever possible becomes the norm during the 100 days of summer. As we preserver through the harshness of our dog days we daydream of cooler places.

Just a few months ago I was back in Missouri visiting my parents when Farmington was hit with some severe winter weather.  I pulled out the camera and made my way to the old bridge in Desloge that spanned the Big River. Yes, unfortunately I used the past tense for the bridge because the day after capturing the image above news was released that the bridge was coming down and being replaced by a new one. I count myself very lucky to be in the right place at the right time and have some recorded history of the bridge that was.

While I was capturing all possible angles to record the old rusty span I heard a man shouting "are you alright?" You see, I was laying in the middle of the road composing the image below.

The alarmed voice came from a middle aged chap that happened to be snowboarding in a farm field directly behind me. All he could see was my truck parked on the shoulder and me lying face down in the middle of the road. I turned around and explained that I was shooting the bridge with my camera and we both got quite a laugh over the juxtaposition I presented.

Later that afternoon my sister and niece accompanied me to a friends farm.  We were there just in time for the cows to be served dinner and headed out by way of a tractor and 4-wheeler to witness their evening smorgasbord. Much to our surprise a bull elk was also in the field no doubt also looking for his next meal.

It was great to be back in the rural farmland but as much as I enjoyed a taste of winter I was looking forward to returning to the beautiful climate of Phoenix in March.

Now that I've endured about 30% of our 100 days of 100 degree summer and am longing for a cooler change to come my way I am reminded of a passage from a great book I read earlier this year. "When we are always almost somewhere, we can't be happy where we are," Suzanne Roberts, Almost Somewhere. Maybe that's the reason for a lot of what I do; never content, must keep moving on to the next trip, the next adventure, the next season.

Fortunately it's a dry heat but I'm still looking forward to Starbucks promoting their Pumpkin Spice Latte later this year.