cosmic bucket

Once in a while, I'll take my iPhone with me on my long weekend run.

During the couple of months leading up to this past Monday's Saguaro Nat'l Park Labor Day run, I'd been running out there, but this morning I went back up to Sabino Canyon. With the recent rains, the desert is green:

The typical pattern here in the summer is clear mornings,

with clouds building in the afternoon,

and then evening thunderstorms...

But today began with clouds.

Ominous saguaros...

Some 'paperflower' in bloom...

(I've been playing with my new 

photo-editing 

 'flavor-of-the-month,'

an app called "ColorSplash")

so green!

Running into the canyon,

after about 2.5 miles,

a reflecting pool below Thimble Peak:

Nice to have so much water;

a couple of months ago, this pool had completely dried up...

Plenty of sacred datura blooms

(a.k.a. 'jimson weed' or even 'Indian whiskey')

...and morning-glory:

(another "ColorSplashed" shot)

...as I came back out of the Canyon, though, the sky had turned ominous,

curtains of rain on the horizon...

and then--WHOA!

--like some cosmic bucket pouring out over the vastness...

It's unusual to have a morning thunderstorm;

 this cell came rolling over the Rincon Mountains from the east...

And that was this morning around Tucson.

=====================================

The other day, I came across this passage, 

written by Ray Bradbury, who passed away just this past June:

“Well now, when was the last time you ran to a library and took home more books than you could read, like stacked loaves of bread, warm in your arms, waiting to be chewed? When, for that matter, was the last time you opened a book, placed it to your nose, and gave a great sniff? Heaven! The smell of bread, baking. When was the last time that you found a really great old book store and wandered through it hour after hour, alone, finding yourself on the shelves. With no list, no intellectual priorities, just wandering, snuffing the dust, plucking the pigeon books off the shelves to read their entrails and, not in love, putting them back, or in love, toting them home? To be lost in time is to find your roots.”