Route 66 – Alive with Wildflowers !

Here’s a quick note if you want to bring some color into your Spring Break: head to Arizona to enjoy stunning displays of desert wildflowers. Thanks to all the rains that fell this past winter, the deserts of the Southwest are showing off their most brilliant, fleeting selves. I’m in the midst of a Route 66 / Spring Training “research trip”, and have been astounded by the intensity of the colors along the highways of southern California and Arizona.

One of the most beautiful displays I’ve seen can be enjoyed on a road that’s a great drive at any time of year, old Route 66 winding up to the mountain ghost town of Oatman.

Oatman makes a great diversion from the Nevada casinos of Las Vegas and Laughlin (where the great Rhinestone Cowboy, Glen Campbell, is playing next week!), and the hillsides all around it are ablaze with wildflowers.

Another great display of wildflowers is lighting up the rugged landscape along US-93, where the extensive forests of comical-looking Saguaro and Joshua Tree cactus are carpeted with poppies, lupines and other blooms. The best stretch (I drove it yesterday at sunset, and it was lovely!), is between Kingman and Wickenburg.

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For further details, updates and viewing tips for wildflowers all over the deserts of the Southwestern USA, click here:

There was also a useful story in a recent Wall Street Journal.