From mid-winter to early Spring

On a recent trip, we almost felt like we were traveling through time as we went from Winter to early Spring, all in one day and within less than 100 miles. We awoke to freezing temperatures and snow along the roadside. Within an hour of driving, the vegetation changed as well as the temperature. Although many trees were without their leaves, clearly we were in a different climate area....one where palm trees seem to thrive. While at home, people are still concerned with shoveling snow, here in this place, they were busy trimming shrubbery and fertilizing lawns! The building in the picture is very white, but underneath that surface is a foundation of some sort of lava rock and the upper areas made of sandstone, all covered with stucco and then painted.



It is apparently a place where even cotton grows!



Though the trees were bare of leaves at that time, we were amazed at the varieties of trees...pomegranates, figs, and pecans. We enjoyed looking at some of the woodwork. We noticed especially one chair for which the legs had been hand turned. They were not quite the same size and the whole thing was just slightly off-center. It is nice to know that woodwrights have these problems with misbehaving wood no matter what the century.



Spinning and weaving rugs were some of the old skills we learned more about.




As you see with the vegetation, this place is a desert...and yet we were shown a photo of this stone house, which sits up a little hill from the road, with water lapping at the entrance to the driveway! The day we saw it, we could hardly see any water in the river at all.



Just down the road from this house, a man was out working in his garden, where the plants seemed to be up and about 4 inches tall. Amazing!