Heading to California for my son's wedding, we left Denver early yesterday morning, driving south on Interstate 25. Once we crossed Raton Pass, on the Colorado-New Mexico border, trees and other greenery was limited to the stream and river channels.
The landscape was especially dry after we passed Santa Fe and descended to Albuquerque. There we switched to Interstate 40 and headed west, undulating through scrub grasslands broken by rock outcrops and low mesas; only the bulk of the Mt. Taylor massif, north of Grants, towered above the arid terrain. Crossing into Arizona, streams were limited to shallow washes and the Little Colorado River, which cut a deep channel through the high desert landscape. Then, fifty miles from Flagstaff, a cluster of mountains appeared on the western horizon, our first glimpse of the volcanic San Francisco peaks.
Within a few miles of the city, piñon pine woodlands spread along the highway and, once in Flagstaff (elevation 6909 feet), taller ponderosa pines adorned the meadows and suburbs. Indeed, sitting along the southern edge of the highlands, the city is a welcome island of greenery in the Desert Southwest; we stopped to enjoy a meal, walk through the historic district in a cool, light mist and spend the night.
