Arizona the beautiful

Dear old Phoenix. We love you again. We love our Tempe at the Buttes Marriott which is nestled right in and on a splendid old butte. Was there ever a more magical place for a resort hotel? Our room opens onto the beautiful gardens and steps up to the pool. The pool winds around the butte; two large pools joined by a channel, looking up to a waterfall and cactus

-covered rocky butte slopes. The mood is easy.

My back is annoying me. A sort of rash is appearing. Hmm, says Dr Bruce. That looks suspiciously like shingles. But I had the Zoster vaccination, say I. Hmm, says Bruce. It doesn’t work on everyone.

Onwards, we must go. We are scheduled to be in Sedona and the election is tomorrow. Arizona has not been too fiercely covered in

Trump posters. It is John McCain’s comfortable electorate. But the media has been a foment of political bile of the most unprecedented ferocity. The campaigns have hit a gutter low. Trump is at home, chanting and bellowing with fire and brimstone and evangelistic fury. His speeches are tantrums. It boggles the mind that so many Americans are sucked in. But they have been on the Fox political hate diet for years now. They have been conditioned to the hatred of Clintons and heavily marketed with the concept of an evil political elite which wants to take their guns away. They are not politically savvy. They are gullible and jealous. Trump feeds these emotions. He struts the political stage like a superstar, giving speeches in front of his parked Trump plane. Hillary erudite and experienced, ripe for the role of president, has a huge burden of mistakes behind her, sexism and misogyny all around her, and now, at the 11th hour, the FBI of all things, throwing a new email scandal in her path. Everything is very stressful and dangerous. We hope there will be a good TV in Sedona for us to watch the election unfold.

It’s a big smoggy out there in Phoenix today. 91 deg F. We whoosh along the speeding 10-lane highway out of town, past schools and industry, past oil tankers queued on rail lines. Palms and eucalypts dominate the urban vegetation. We run the gauntlet of relentless commerce on the highways; big, colourful, prosperous, cheerful.

It’s a good highway. Past the University of Phoenix and towards rows of perfectly pointy volcanic mountains and basalt boulder fields.

Burbs with mesquite. Hillsides with saguaros.

We wind upwards into mountains and as we gain elevation, we gain density of cacti until they reach wow factor.

Chollas with the saguaros. Bruce is in heaven. The chollas are blooming.

Desert plants. Adobe-style housing settlements. Those lovely adobe colours.

We are at 2000ft elevation.

The road narrows. The trucks take over.

A sign identifies a mesa as Table Mesa. Bruce thinks this is hilarious. Mesa means table. It is Table Table, he laughs.

The earth has been changing colour. Now we are in sandy limestone. It’s not volcanic here. It is part of the Rocky Mountain uplift, explains Bruce.

We cross Moore’s Gulch and gasp at the spectacle of the sea of saguaros and chollas in the dry creek bed.

Now at about 3000ft, it seems to be a sweet spot for saguaros.

And we are right inside the rolls of the mountains.

More mesas and a large, widely-spread community appears. Black Canyon City. It has a real wild west look to it. One expects to see tumbleweed.

Oh, and a little town called Bumble Bee. Cute.

We keep climbing, amid trucks groaning in low gear and wanting to pass each other.

There’s Horsethief Basin Recreational Area. There’s a name that tells a story.

The saguaro cacti are suddenly gone. The slopes are covered with pretty little prickly pear cacti.

And now we are on a desert plateau. No cactus at all.

Scenic View, says a sign.

Vending Machines, says the sign beside it.

Not my sort of view, say I.

We thunder on amid our friends, the long-distance truckies, past roadside boulders Bruce identifies as a’a lava flow. See, he says, there are two kinds of basaltic lava flows: a’a and pahoehoe. The names come from Hawaiian.

Low scrub lies sparsely on the slopes as a mountain range unfolds itself softly.

We pass Bloody Basin Road. Pale boulders.

A sign to Agua Fria National Monument.

An overpass. A settlement. And back to wide open plains. Low mesquite. No cactus. Lots of a white flowering desert plant we can’t identify.

No services. No nothing.

We are on our own out here, apart from the trucks, of course.

Just vast desert landscape.

Elevation 4000ft.

Yellow dry expanse. Small hills.

A little higher and miniature prickly pears appear again and then, suddenly, a riot of desert juniper.

Green bushes all over. Even a couple of cottonwoods out there.

Signs invite trucks and caravans to pull off here and check their brakes.

And down we wind into a steep, steep valley.

Cars are hooning down like idiots.

Skunk smell. Poor little critter, probable clobbered by a car.

This seems to be Fort Verde State Park.

Red mesas stretch out far ahead across a vista of limestone hills.

This land was once under a shallow sea, says Bruce.

Dead Horse State Park, says a sign.

We take a turnoff. West 260. Oh, look at that Wendy’s Restaurant, disguised as a handsome adobe dwelling. Trees. A treescape with hints of autumn hue. Trump signs.

Sign: Guns. Buy, Sell, Trade. Rental Archery.

Mini storage.

The road goes ahead towards those limestone cliffs Bruce loves.

We can see the rich red striations of the Sedona mountains far ahead.

And here comes a town called Cottonwood. 3320ft elevation. Established 1879.

Sedona is not far away. Over the Verde River with its cottonwoods. Past the Coconino National Forest.

Black cattle. Yellow grass. Prickly pears. Junipers. Sign: Beware of deer. And suddenly a brilliant vista as the red-rock country appears, that glorious rich red rock streaking across the landscape. Yellow cottonwoods, lush vegetation, cactus… Sedona City Limits.