It seems an almost surreal find: polished and honed, a sizeable specimen of fossilized stromatolite stands on display, its telltale waves and swirls evident to the trained eye. Somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago, give or take a few hundred million years, the very cyanobacteria inside (a precursor to today’s algae) were busy converting Earth’s uninhabitable atmospheric gases into oxygen. Without them, none of us would be alive today.
Springtime in the desert is unlike anywhere else on Earth. Landscapes that appear brown and barren one day seem to explode overnight into bursts of yellow, fuschia, magenta and white.
Writer Shannon Severson – Photography Courtesy of Gavilan Peak School [dropcap]W[/dropcap]orld trade and economies are increasingly interdependent as technology melts…
Hiking or biking the serene desert trails of Brown’s Ranch, it’s easy to get lost in the rugged natural beauty of saguaro-studded landscapes, bursts of spring wildflowers and precariously balanced boulders.
If you’ve been looking for something that stands out among the long list of Valley culinary choices, you may just find your newest favorite in The Bourbon Cellar.
The sands of time have a way of honing the past, shaping and polishing it so that generations to come can judge it more clearly. At times, the decades or centuries reveal horrors we hope to never repeat. But sometimes what is revealed is nothing less than greatness.
Michael P. Johnson has presence. It’s not the fact that his 6-foot, 4-inch frame makes him tower over most of his friends or his distinct mane of long white hair that makes him stand out in a room; Johnson has a distinctive energy about him that isn’t seen so much as it is felt.
While many artists gain endless ideas from one central concept, Scottsdale-based sculptor Jeff Zischke, whose work appears throughout the Valley and around the world, is simply inspired.
Ask any tourist what brought them to Arizona, and you’ll likely hear something about the more obvious attractions: the Grand Canyon, the weather, and spring training et al. Anyone living in the desert knows, though, that it’s the unassuming things that make Arizona special.
The towns of Cave Creek and Carefree have come up with a great solution for making their unique contributions of food, shopping and fun accessible to visitors and locals alike. Their latest effort, the Foothills Trolley, is a free way to traverse some of the towns’ most popular spots and scenic views, and it’s a nod to Phoenix history to boot.
