The Desert

People often think of the desert as a lifeless landscape. It is, in fact, just the opposite.

Some of the world's most otherworldly flora displays its gorgeous weirdness in the baking sun despite a suffocating lack of water. Ocotillo, Cholla, Yucca. Wise old peyote buttons, menacing prickly pear, and saguaro cactus 30 feet tall. A valley of these looks like a totally saturated sea of vibrant green.

When I see a dead Joshua Tree decaying in the sun, I find it as holy as Constantine floating down the Ganges river with 1,000 paper cranes balancing on his fingertip. Haunting, beautiful, transcending time and dimension.

It doesn't rain often. But when it does, it does. I went to school in Tucson, Arizona. Twice a year the monsoons would rain as if Lake Havasu were being dumped from the sky. I would drive my Jeep around town, slicing through water three to four feet deep. The cicadas would be deafening behind the handsome palo verde trees next to the mesquite trees that smelled glorious.

The party is at night. What with temperatures in the 100s for half the year, the funky desert creatures come out after the sun goes to sleep. Hummingbirds, bats, dragonflies, javelina, gila monsters and tortoises, buzzing, flapping, whizzing, stomping, meandering and brooding past. You'll see a scorpion on your front porch, a tarantula on your rear deck.

Such a stark landscape, filled with extremes, makes for utter magic you won't find elsewhere. It is easily the most psychedelic place on Earth.