R. E. D. -- RED!

Red -- Nancy Regan's trademark suit -- you couldn't miss her. Red -- 10% of cars sold last year. But serious, downtown-type buildings usually aren't red.


Firehouse Square is a sure-fire exception to that rule! It is R.E.D. RED, seen here from the city parking garage on Granite Street. (Now about that gizmo looking like an intertwined pair of old fashioned bicycles: is it a scupture, a utilitarian object or what? You tell me.)


But I digress. Let's get back to the red outbreak. Catch that matching SUV, which, you'll note is a two-toner, per my recent commentary on car colors.

What more can I say? Never have I ever seen such a wonderful blaze of redness in any city, any downtown! It's a grand change from the same old same old.


More redness, this time out in the forest. Specifically, this beautiful stand of penstemon barbatus (scarlet bugler) was blooming up in Ponderosa Park a couple of weeks ago. Probably thanks to the monsoon rains we've been having -- my barbatus bloomed a month ago.


Another of our bright red summer wildflowers: scarlet gilia, known as skyrocket or firecracker. This specimen is growing on Gurley Street, in the block west of Park Avenue -- a favorite little spot for city wildflowers. The gilia is just starting to bloom.

Skyrocket made the cover of Science magazine a number of years ago. Inside was a NAU study of early and late season pollinators and their impact on flower color. The scarlet gilia tends toward white blossoms as summer comes to an end. Apparently, the late season visitors to high country gilia are primarily hawk moths and other night callers which usually pick white flowers.

While we have scattered patches of scarlet gilia here and there in the Prescott area, the embankments of I-40 between Williams and Flagstaff turn red with the blossoms in late summer. If you need a good red fix, take a spin on I-40 in August -- after you've spent an afternoon admiring the Firehouse Square paint job.

In the High Country

As I promised, I am truly BACKSON. The youngsters dropped me off this afternoon, after first indulging my photographic impulse in downtown Flagstaff and later stopping for fresh veggies down in the Verde Valley.


The funny thing is that I had never noticed the immense cow on the front of this building on previous visits to the capital of the high country -- and I'm told it's been there for years! Right on Milton. I guess my eye for detail and differences has changed since I started in on this blog project!


Also on Milton: this emporium where the idea appears to be to catch 'em getting ready for the first date -- and for the final date! By the way, if you are in the market for a Flagstaff business, here's your big chance -- check the leftmost window.

There's more than 13,000 students and 2000 feet elevation difference between Prescott and Flagstaff. Old building materials, to give an example. The building above is made from basalt stones, in contrast to Prescott's granite and river cobbles.


Old Main on the NAU campus provides a classic example of the other Flagstaff building stone: large bricks of Supai limestone -- quarried about three miles east of the center of town, says the son-in-law. (BTW, when my Aunt Iola attended NAU in the 20s, then the state normal school, those huge trees were not yet born.)

A Flagstaff sign that has gone missing since we first came to Arizona in the 80s -- the one fronting the one-time drive-in ammo and liquor store! The business is still there; it's a little more sedate now.

Arizona's rough edges are being gradually whittled away. A pity.