The top picture is of a Mexican Palo Verde tree in bloom. This tree is outside our back patio and all winter I was positive that it was dead. In the spring it bloomed! My brother was good enough to photograph it for me since I will undoubtabley never see it in bloom any other way. The second picture was taken on the way to Sedona, Arizona where the awesome red hills are. Sedona is one of the fastest growing communities in the United States, retirees from California are moving there rapidly. The scenery along that stretch of highway is straight out of a western, at any moment you expect a statecoach to come racing out from behind one of the peaks in a tumultous flurry of gunshots and dust! The last picture is one of the Red Hills of Sedona, they are so unbelievably red from the iron ore in the rock. Sedona is a tourist's town and reminds me of the Wisconsin Dells--it's a fun place to visit. I grew up with the red soil of the iron mines in Minnesota but in no way can that compare with the beautiful Red Hills of Sedona.