Unexpected Beauty

After leaving Death Valley, our next destination was Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona.  We were off to a late start & arrived just before dark.  Our time would be incredibly restricted so we decided to attempt to see as much of the park as we could before the sun went down.

Having grown up in the driftless area of southwestern Wisconsin I take for granted how beautiful a place I live in with its rolling hills & vast wilderness of deciduous trees.  Travelling to the Southwest made me wonder how anyone could live in such a harsh, barren place.

On our way across the desert we drove through a rainstorm which was now lingering over the mountain range in the distance.  As we continued our way around the park the sun slowly approached the horizon.  The sky became a blaze of changing colors, from orange to red then purple.  The cacti provided the perfect foreground against the backdrop of mixed & changing colors burning brightly in the sky.

As I stood watching the sun sink behind the mountains taking with it the palette of colors that had painted the sky I realized that this place wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.  I hadn’t expected to see so much beauty in a place where life struggles to exist.  Now I realize beauty presents itself in a variety of ways & being able to see it here was a gift, something I won’t soon forget.