At Usery Pass Road, on the north east edge of Mesa Arizona there were carpets of flowers, particularly California Golden Poppy, also called Mexico Poppy.

One person we met today who lives here said it was the most spectacular bloom of flowers he had seen in 40 years!

It was astonishing what can happen to the desert. The Sonoran desert gets more rain than most deserts so it has the greatest diversity of plant life of any of the North American deserts. But this was unusual.

First, the desert was greener than we had ever seen it before. By desert standards it was lush. Ditches even had water close to our rented house, where we rarely saw water. This year was special.

To call this year in the desert “remarkable” as I had been doing was really to use a word that is too mild. It was sensational. It was heaven for a flower child like me.