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Where We Live

That is where we live:  on North Cerritos.  The little hills.

I drove west on The Highway of the Hill, to see where the Trail End was, at the end of the highway, and on the way back, stopped at a place where I could see the little hill where our house nestles.

I love the colors of the Sonoran desert, which is not a sand desert--something like a Sahara--but a gravel desert filled with plants.  And critters.  Creosote bushes, or Greasewood, if you will.  Cacti.  Ocotillo.  Saguaros, although not so many as up on The Hill, looking south.  An occasional coyote:  Creator of all of us.  Javalinas.  Bobcats.  An occasional ill-tempered rattlesnake.  Palo Verdes:  Green Stick trees.  Owls.  Mesquite trees, sending their roots down almost forever to find water, sometimes at a water pipe or a septic tank.  It is a green place.

And hot, of course.  Usually around a hundred degrees, Fahrenheit, in the summer.  A curious mixture of scorching heat and sometime-thunderous downpours.  Steering wheels and front door handles almost too hot to touch.  Air conditioning, everywhere.  "Where are you from?" they ask, and then they say, "I used to live there, too.  Welcome!"  

Everywhere you go, there are beautiful places.  I admit, not reluctantly, that some of the beautiful places have snow.  Some have Ocotillos.  Terraced rows of corn and soybeans.  Pine trees around a lake.  Grass that goes on forever, like ice farther north.  Mountain slopes with old family names.  Rivers with river boats.  Tug boats and ferries.  Everywhere there are beautiful places and fine people.

I have been thinking about that, a lot.  A lot.

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