My favorite girl, my pup, China, and I have just returned from a big road trip to Arizona to visit with family. China and I have done this many times over the years – the two of us hanging our heads out the windows with the wind blowing in our faces.

Tooling our way down through Colorado on I-25, China sitting shot-gun, we pulled off to have a walk through the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, a place that I have passed by more times than I can count, but since this trip was about stopping and smelling the roses, so-to-speak, I pulled off the road to have a look.

Garden of the Gods is a heavenly landscape of red rock out-croppings standing high in the sky like the most majestic Gods and Goddesses imaginable. China and I took a quick hike down the pathways, with me taking photographs along the way. It wasn’t until I was in my hotel room later in the evening that I noticed all of the orbs and the blue ghost cruising around my photos.

The orbs, one could argue, are dust particles flying through the air, but what about that blue vision? There is something going on in this enchanted place.

Meandering our way from Colorado to New Mexico, I was struck by the ever changing view out the car window. Rich yellows and russets covering the Colorado mountainsides soon became pale golden grasses with watercolor skies above…. 

Our drive on the first leg of our trip took us to Albuquerque, where the big Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta was taking place. If you have never been to this event, add it to your bucket list—it’s magical.

The second leg of our trip brought us to my father and stepmother’s home just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.

I had been wanting to visit my folks for some time, and I was also feeling the need to escape a little, to be in a place where I didn’t know many people, where I could be anonymous for a few days. This was the perfect place to do just that.

The desert has an unusual beauty. It is sparse but far from empty or lacking life. Walking amongst the cacti, I saw lizards scurrying across rocks, brightly colored wildflowers that grew out of the gravel to thrive in the hot, dusty air, butterflies everywhere, and birds flying all around.

We visited Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s summer camp in Scottsdale. It is still a private home and the main campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. The one-and-a-half-hour tour was fabulous.

Lloyd Wright was so ahead of his time that as I walked through the house, I saw many elements that are now referred to as contemporary design. However, he was a true innovator and father of organic architecture.

After our day of sight-seeing, my stepmother made a wonderful Waldorf salad, which made me think about some of the classic dishes that I had forgotten about. This was such a perfect dish—light, made with Honey-Crisp apples, lemon zest, and crunchy celery. I decided to take some of the unusual ingredients that my stepmother had in her version of this classic and spice it up a bit more.