Arizona Thanksgiving by Jane St. Clair
Like people everywhere, we who celebrate Arizona Thanksgiving have much to be thankful for, such as the election is over. Thanksgiving here is unique in that you can eat your dinner outside on a picnic table, just like a Pilgrim. This made me think about other neat things to be grateful for about Arizona like the months of October through April, and that the last two surviving jaguars in the United States live in our state.
I’m also grateful for the beautiful way the Anglo, Mexican and Native American cultures come together here.
I’m grateful for amazing sunsets every single afternoon, and the beauty of a zillion stars against unpolluted black night skies. I’m grateful for the vastness, silence, grandeur and solitude of the Sonoran Desert.
So as the song goes –when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad– I simply remember my favorite things about Arizona. Other times I just think about them for no reason.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The Grand Canyon
Cowboys
Kartchner Caverns
32 million acres of public land
Reid Park Zoo
Free Solar Energy
Sedona
Starry Nights
Kitt Peak
Route 66
Ostrich farms
Hopi Culture
The Desert Museum
Pusch Ridge
Mama Quails and their babies
Copper Queen Hotel
360 Days of Sunshine
The Saguaro National Monument
Tarantula spiders
Sunsets
Monsoon Storms
Tombstone and OK Corral
Yaqui Easter Festivals
Organ Pipe National Monument
The Thing in the Desert
Arizona cures some allergies
Old Tucson
Canyon de Chelly
Road trips
Hot Air Balloon Rides
Cowboy Songs and Poems
Swamp Coolers
Saguaros
Petrified Forest
Cars Don’t Rust
The Mystery Castle
Mountain Vistas
Ghost Towns
Ramsey Canyon
Pioneer history
Sky Islands in Cochise County
Day of the Dead Parades
Big Horn Sheep
Civil War Reenactments
Fort Apache
Jerome, AZ
Desert Snow
Rio Salada Walks
Biosphere 2
Mount Lemmon
Flagstaff
Standing on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona
Spring wildflowers
Pinetop, AZ in summer
Rodeos
Professional Phoenix Sports teams
Lizards
Desert Washes
The Heard Museum
Campgrounds
Tohono Chul Park
Fishing in mountain streams
San Xavier Mission
Christmases that look like Bethlehem
Degrazia
Arizona sometimes helps Arthritis
Real Working Ranches
Walnut Canyon
Mexican Restaurants Everywhere
Cinco de Mayo
Coyotes
Desert Eccentrics
Cold Swims in Summer
Jackalopes
Southwestern Art
JackalopesThe Day of the Dead
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Mountain and Desert Soulitude.
Jane St. Clair’s essay “Nowhere Near” appears in the 2016 Fall issue of Ruminate magazine.