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Saturday, January 12, 2008

sea dreams among the mesquite

road with cattle right road center with cattle

I posted a basic and perfunctory Noel 2007 reflection over on an inactive blog, but about a third of the way into January I have a really good one for today! For starters, during my recent visit to Tucson, the ride toward the international border as we drove out to Rio Rico-Rich River was amazing! Remember, this is the Sonoran desert with its exceptional biodiversity that absolutely for sure does not include coastal, shoreside, seashore, seaside or beach habitat. I love the title I gave this post—back in my cultural anthropology classes, the professor frequently commented on people stereotyping to such a degree they talked about customs, etc. "among the whomever whatever whichever" culture in question, but today I truly am writing about things I witnessed amidst desert plants like the (yes, stereotypical, usual) mesquite and similar. The fun thing was the street names that included nautical language like océano, mar, ballena, mariscos, embarcadero, muelle, playa, langosta, huracán, agua linda, agua salada, (plus Finlandia and Dinamarca).

cattle crossing cattle in the mesquite

I've blogged and posted some pictures from the seafaring town of Harwich, Massachusetts and about Salem, Massachusetts―we'd drive up the shore from Boston to Salem when we lived in Boston and later up the Shore to Marblehead, Ipswich and Gloucester when we lived in Salem, but in those cases you'd expect the vocabulary to align with the land- and seascape, which it sometimes did, though lots of streets and roads and churches and buildings got named after historical people or happenings.

On our exodus out of Rio Rico, we enjoyed cattle crossing―javalina, too, but didn't get any pics of the javvies. Given the considerable size of the bovine population cohort, we were able to get some great cattle pics; you can see four of the best right here!

3 comments:

Hot Cup Lutheran said...

i'm guessing it's open-range since the bovines are crossing the road? we got ourselves so many dern fences out here...

leah said...

oh, hot cup, thanks for visiting--i still am so freaked out. yep, it sure be open range, and the humanoid population is so sparse and spare it's close to non-existent!

Karla MG said...

As the snow is still coming--and blowing--I'd sure love to be hanging out where these pics were taken right now, especially riding along with my sister! :D Hey, I don't have time to compose a full e-mail, but I'll tell you here, in a two hours, I'm getting pictures taken! I'll let you know, if I can by phone, tonight what the results are! I appreciate the prayers you've already been sending my way! They're calming, and I need calm now!