It's getting into late March but I have not thought about these grenade bursts of neon magenta-pink in the calico desert, the mind-boggling blooms of the beavertail cactus that pop this time of year.
I adore these blooms and this morning after I bicycled the Red Rock Loop outside Las Vegas, I prepared a late-morning stir fry breakfast and told myself it was game on to check for these Mojave Desert plants at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
I checked in at the visitors center and then bicycled along the River Mountains Loop Trail and that's where I saw the explosions of fushcia in the sloping desert land where Lake Mead serves as a vackdrop.
When I left Las Vegas in February 2016 for Vero Beach, Florida, I missed the blooms of these amazing plants (and the opening of T-Mobile-Arena on the Strip.)
And when I returned to start LVSportsBiz.com in June 2017, I missed that year's bloom.
I still remember the jolt of joy I felt when I saw those blooms again in late March 2018 and there was a renewal of this rite Sunday afternoon.
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The re-connection to this bloom color and spring rite of passage was more powerful than seeing the Bellagio or the Fremont Street Experience or the Strip again when I returned.
Nature eclipses all and today's doubleheader of bike rides -- the Red Rock Loop and the Rover Mountains Loop Trail/Lake Mead -- was a lovely reset for the week.
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You know my saying: nature and bicycling before LVSportsBiz and writing.
