A Spring Drive and an Afternoon by the Pool

The drive out of the desert climbed through switchbacks with rock cut close on one side and a guardrail on the other, slow going behind an SUV that had the same idea we did. Everything on the slopes was in bloom — brittlebush in yellow clumps between the boulders, agaves stacked all the way up the hillsides, a few barrel cactus if you looked. April must be the month for it, because even the plainest gravel washes had color running through them.

We pulled off a couple of times just to look up at the ridgelines. No trail, no destination, just the road doing the work.

Back down in the flats by afternoon and straight to the pool at the hotel. Date palms all around the deck, blue umbrellas, loungers mostly empty. The water still held some of the winter cold, so it was a feet-in kind of swim. Stayed until the sun dropped behind the palms and the deck went into shade.