How I spent my spring vacation

Just back from Rio Verde, Ariz., where I visited sister Mary Catherine "Chats" Miller Northrup and her husband, Michael Northrup. The desert was in glorious bloom. A few snapshots, many of them taken at the really cool Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. (More photos from the Arizona trip are in subsequent posts.)

At the entrance to the botanical garden. We visited at the perfect time. The desert blooms in April and early May, and it's not yet unbearably hot, just nice and hot.

This one was in the butterfly garden area, scaring the children.

But seriously ... the cacti were gorgeously abloom. Here's a kind of prickly pear cactus.

This, too, is a kind of bloom.

More prickly pear, this one with yellow blooms.

Barrel cacti. I tried to get Chats to sit on one for a photo, but as always, she was too smart for me.

A pink bloom. I think this was a beaver-tail cactus.

A blooming cactus with fishhook spines. They'll keep the riffraff away.

Who knew there were so many kinds of cactus?

Pastor Cathy liked the organ pipe cacti.

Cathy thought this windy-bindy cactus was creepy, but I liked it.

A very cool sundial in the park's courtyard.

Not cacti at all, but Dale Chihuly sculptures. At night, they light the place up, and these glass artworks glow beautifully.

Lots of little lizards in the garden. This one posed nicely for us.

Beep beep! A roadrunner.

 Hello! Do you like my hat? I do! I do like that hat!

Also visited old friends (and former Minnesotans) David Bowers and Jeff Rezab, who live in Sun Lakes, south of Phoenix. They're as wonderful as ever.