The Desert

Your eyes flutter open to another beautiful morning. You feel refreshed and more alive than yesterday. You step outside to the warm morning. As expected it is already in the 80s. You take a walk with your dog and bring a tennis ball with you. You play fetch with your dog for a bit until your sister comes out. Some birds fly overhead heading for an unknown destination. One drops a feather and it lands a couple feet away from you. It is brownish gray in color and doesn't have any pattern. You leave it be and head back over to your sister. You throw the ball a couple more times and then get back in the vehicle. You get back onto the highway and head west.

You leave the windiest city in the United States behind. The early morning heat keeps most of the furry creatures in their dens. It is only a short distance until you cross the border into New Mexico. You don't see an animal one. The land is still as dry as the sun's surface and feels almost as hot. Finally, you see a roadrunner off to your right. You get your camera, but before you know it, it is gone. It is not often you see a roadrunner. It gets so hot out even the bugs seem to go into hiding. Cactuses stand dispersed across the land as far as the eye can see. Their spiny green structures embrace the torturous sun.

As the sun travels through the sky you continue to travel until you get to Albuquerque. Albuquerque is home to the nation's largest hot air balloon festival. Usally you can see some balloons but you don't see any today. The wind and heat are too much to fly the balloons. The heat reflects off of the pavement and the town outside looks like it has just baked in an oven for a couple years. All of the buildings are stucco or concrete, and there isn't a variety of colors. The blandness just blends together with the land.

After you get out of town the heat causes distant mirages. Some look like lakes and the foot of distant mountains. You start to gain elevation when you enter Arizona. You stop in at a little no name town. There are fields of cotton behind the gas station. It is a field of brown and white. It starts getting dark after you leave and with the dark comes cooler temperatures. You start to see trees as you near Flagstaff. The trees are mostly pines but are scattered. You make it to the Little America before