The first weekend in November we traveled again to Arizona for our nephew's wedding. We left all of the wedding photos up to the photographer and instead took pictures of cacti in Tonto National Forest outside of Phoenix. I can't wait to go back and hike/camp in the Sonoran desert.
Classic prickly pear. It seems so harmless...
I have this thing about cacti: I like to touch it. My mom had a lot of cactus plants in the house growing up (insert long-running joke about phallic symbols) and I liked to "pet"them. Hypothetically, with specific types of cactus, you can run your finger one direction without getting poked, but if you run it the other direction, voila, you are full of spines. I was fascinated by this idea, and how easily it was to get a spine in your finger, but almost impossible to get it back out. No matter how many times I get a "stung," I always go back for more.
This is one cactus I refused to go near. Apparently this guy will"throw" his spines at you if you get too close. I instantly recognized the fact that I would definitely get too close and we would spend all afternoon picking spines out of my face. So, to avoid disaster I took the photo while Than pretended to hug the cactus.
We took this photo because all of these cacti were growing in a straight line. One of these is impressive enough. Eight in a row is amazing!
Beautiful Sonoran desert!
