'Ireland' in southern Arizona...back from L.A.

A friend of ours recently went on a drive south of the city, and he called me, saying, "you have to get down to Sonoita--it's like going to Ireland."

So, yesterday morning, we went for the scenic drive--just 45 minutes to the SE of Tucson, and the monsoon rains have indeed turned the normally dun-to-golden grasslands into rolling green hills...there are even some pronghorn antelope in the area, although we didn't see any yesterday...it was disorienting--felt like we were in Montana, maybe--very dépaysant...

A nice way to get out of the desert even if just for a couple of hours. Some friends of ours from Phoenix were with us--they too were amazed by the un-desert-feel, less than an hour from Tucson...


The grasslands have also, for a few decades now, become home to some vineyards and wineries. The wines are not 'amazing,' but the high elevation and soil conditions are ideal for growing grapes...and it's interesting that viticulture in Arizona dates back to the 1600's when the first Spanish priests brought vines to plant in their mission gardens, huddled behind walls not always adequate against Apache attacks...

...yeah, so maybe the yucca plant is not exactly Irish, but to our now-desert-accustomed-eyes, this is a super-verdant scene...

...looking west toward the peaks of the Santa Rita mountains,

from Empire Ranch in Las Cienegas National Conservation Area...

 ...and there are late summer wildflowers in abundance...and this cool-looking bug, eh?

I found out what it is: a veined ctenucha moth.

(Ctenucha--pronounced: teh-noo-chah.)

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Last weekend, right after the first week of the new school-year, we went to Los Angeles for a conference...

I did take this past Monday off, so we could get back to Tucson without being totally exhausted...or so we thought: we'd planned on leaving Monday morning, but then the friends with whom we were staying wanted to show us around, so we ended up having a tourist-day...and didn't get back to Tucson until midnight--exhausting, but worth it.

The day began with pastries and lattes at Porto's Bakery in Burbank--think Paris-meets-Cuba--awesome!

Then we putzed around Hollywood and then up to Griffith Observatory above the city:

...the famous 'Chinese Theatre' on Hollywood Boulevard, on the 'Walk of Fame'...

Over the years I have been to Los Angeles, I had never actually stopped in this part of Hollywood to gawk at the cement-immortalized handprints, footprings, signatures, and stars...

S. and I don't really keep up with celebrity 'news,' but this was actually kind of fun...

...Neo-Babylonian à la Disney architecture (?) at the

Hollywood and Highland Center, where the Kodak

Theater is also located--the site of the Academy Awards...

ahh...the smog-enshrouded skyline of Los Angeles, looking SE from Griffith Observatory...
we could just barely make out the ocean to the SW...

I'd never really spent time in Burbank--just driven through--it always seemed like it would be an overly asphalted area, with all of the studios--ABC, Warner Brothers, Disney, Universal...but our friends live in a tree-lined neighborhood just around the corner from where Jay Leno is filmed every day--I went for a morning run among eucalyptus, palms, pines, magnolias, gardens full of callas, roses, bougainvillea-vines trained into giant trees...who knew that Burbank was so green?

So. Today. Time to breathe. Next weekend--three days off--Labor Day weekend...and Labor Day itself--the 8-mile run through Saguaro National Park.