Christmas tree flowers

It's December, and I am missing pohutukawa ... (link for my non Kiwi readers if such there be)

But - look what I found in Arizona. This will do til the real thing comes along.

I think it's a calliandra

Christmas lights by sea (Lake Havasu light parade)

As I said, strange and lovely are the Christmas lights of the desert. Especially if you watch them on a lake that is spanned by London Bridge (that's the actual London Bridge, not some cheap local knock-off.)

Christmas lights by land (Ethel M cactus garden)

Strange and lovely are the Christmas lights of the desert. We saw them here by land at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory. 3 acres of inexplicable seasonally festive wow ...

On snowbirds (Quartzsite, Arizona and surrounds)

Hand painted stone marker
at the entrance to Quartzsite cemetery

Quartzsite makes me twitch every time I see it written down. I suppose it is a quartz site, but my brain keeps wanting it to be quartzite. Anyhow this town is southeastern Arizona has a few thousand people for 2/3 of the year, then round early January suddenly swells to tens of thousands as the annual snowbird migration kicks in. So for my money, November/December is not at all a bad time to visit - the temperature is already very pleasant, but the winter season hasn't yet really started.

Snowbirds - aww. 'Snowbird migration' sounds fluttery and adorbs. Cue Anne Murray, amirite? What this actually is, though, is a massive influx of retired folks who come south for winter in their RVs. If Vegas has from time to time seemed to me like a city inexplicably spread out over a desert valley, then this is like a cross between an RV park and a - huh. Retirement home? Skin growth? I can't come up with nice similes for this. (Better stop then, because a) being kind, b) it behooves me to show some sympathy, given how easily I could imagine us hooking into this peregrinatory lifestyle and c) I saw this early snowbird in Quartzsite last week, he was driving 25 in the left-hand lane of a 35 mile road, sporting a 'Gun owners for Trump 2016' bumper sticker on the back window of his around-town vehicle.) All up, I feel that buffalo migration would be closer. Land behemoth migration gives a better idea but doesn't quite have the ring. And after all, they are white (the RVs, that is, overwhelmingly so. Demographics? IDK) and they are coming south for winter.

ohai, im in ur desert campin in my rv

So, the empty desert flats around Quartzsite come alive for a few months a year when the weather is
cool enough for enjoyment. I can't help wondering how the local infrastructure copes - water supply, sewerage, health care, etc. There are more RV parks in and around than you can shake a stick at, and the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that manages otherwise unallocated federal land throughout the country, has even set aside some 'long-term visitor areas' where you can pay a season fee to pick a site and stay. That's at one end of the accommodation spectrum. At the other are parks with low stone walls and wrought-iron arched gates for each site so you can get the full illusion of suburbia: parks with cafes, gift shops, and other services on site.

Ohai, I'll be ur rv suburb today

We stopped at one of the cafes. It was not a cafe as urbanite would know it, but 'recognisable through cross-cultural gear meshings' as Stephenson has it (Cryptonomicon, page ref gah who am I kidding.) The decor was country diner/restaurant, and so was the menu. The pink fundraiser baseball caps on sale were an ... authentic cultural touch? Lucky find? Future heirloom? (Motto picked out in rhinestones: 'Make Quartzsite Great Again!')

The main street as I saw it seemed to alternate between fast food, gas stations, and either Wilderness Gems or Geoff's Emporium, for those of you from that Auckland ambit: dusty stores full of amazingly varied discount stock lines (USB 0.9 cable, anyone? Mini slot head screwdriver? Not-quite-vintage old-new-stock postcards of other places in Arizona?)

There's a huge gem and mineral show here at the end of January. (Also plenty of good rockhounding around the area, of which more another time.) The number of rock/gem/mineral/bead/jewellery shops seems in proportion rather to the winter population than the summer, and includes what is without exception the best jewellery supply shop I've ever seen. (It has a camel out front, just in case. Camels are part of local history as the 'ships of the desert' were trialled for desert travel and freight service in the late 19th century).

Camel sculpture outside the big gem and jewellery supply

Tomb and monument of Hi Jolly, camel wrangler supreme

There's an enormous open air flea market too ...

sunset light from just north of Quartzsite

The surrounding land is brown and flat, with hills rising on all sides at various distances - closer to
east and west, which makes sense as we're still in the Basin and Range geological province here. However it's Sonoran desert, which means saguaro cactus, a novelty I didn't get tired of yet. It can be quite beautiful (in parts - in its own austere way - on a blue clear day) and we saw a couple of really lovely sunsets.

I say brown and flat, but it is already dotted with white even at Thanksgiving as early arrivals pick out their spots and hang up their hats. Come mid January, and they'll be cheek by jowl.

Small rooms of Yuma

It was mild enough when we went there last month, but Yuma gets as hot in the summer as you'd expect for a town within spitting distance of the Mexican border. It's an interesting little place in its own quiet way, just south of the confluence of two mighty southwestern rivers: the Gila and the Colorado.

Bobcat

Yes! Please tell me more about your bobcat encounter!
(Image by ucumari)

Okay, so I was very lucky the other day: I saw a bobcat. Only for a few seconds as it made its way up the river bank, and of course I had no camera in hand. It was heading away from me and I first recognised it by the absurd stumpy tail. Then when I called to Simon to come out of the tent and see, it turned and showed me its round tigery face. (And its teeth, actually.) Then it loped off into the trees.

This here is exactly the look it gave me.

So much fun bobcat fact! Very learn!

• http://www.defenders.org/bobcat/bobcats 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat

Also, since it was an Arizona bobcat ... this is so, so NSFW, you been warned ...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bobcats_cactus

Best shipwreck ever (Sandbar Resort, Parker AZ)

Looking for somewhere to eat, we were attracted by the riverside location and all the pretty Christmas lights. When we went in, everyone was outside on the deck - and when we went outside on the deck, it looked like a private party. I asked.

"Yes it is," said the man behind the bar, "but you're invited."