I am just now catching up from almost six months of traveling.  Between July of last year and last week I was on the road more or less constantly.  We drove from Iowa City to Arizona last summer, a trip that brought us to the cool airy heights of the Chiracahua Mountains in southeast Arizona where we were able to look out over the desert and watch the monsoons sailing through below, their big gray ballooning clouds looking more and more like Spanish galleons.  It was easy to imagine Coronado traveling through those mountains, and later Cochise--whose body was thought to be secretly buried here--and the ghosts of Buffalo Soldiers in hot pursuit.  In  Chiricahua National Monument you can find the ecological wonder known as  "sky islands," unique micro climates that host species that have been stranded there since the last Ice Age. It's also a geologist's paradise, with distinctive volcanic formations that are among the most unique and other-worldly I have seen outside of Iceland.    From there we went to Phoenix where we were able to catch the Edward Burtynsky show "Water" at the Phoenix Art Museum and then onward to LA, San Diego, and West Hollywood.