Road Dust and Giant Shadows
Over spring break, we set out toward familiar ground,; the low deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. There’s something about the Sonoran landscape that keeps calling us back. Maybe it’s the way the light hits the saguaros at dusk, or how time seems to stretch in the heat. Maybe it’s just the space to breathe.
We started around Tucson, tracing trails through Saguaro National Park, watching the desert bloom in quiet, subtle ways. The landscape looks still, but it’s always shifting—one cactus at a time.
From there, we drove east—crossing into New Mexico, where the terrain softens and expands. We wandered across the otherworldly gypsum dunes of White Sands, then descended into the cool, silent depths of Carlsbad Caverns. Above ground, sunlight and heat. Below, a cathedral of stone and shadow.
The trip ended—more or less—in Santa Fe, where adobe walls and crisp mountain air reminded us we’d left the desert behind. But that dry, cracked earth stayed with us. It always does.
