In the distance, craggy silhouettes of mountains looked like the edges of a torn map ... the Sonoran Desert, starting from a trailhead 25 miles outside the city of Scottsdale, a winding walk ...

I was absorbed into stories about the saguaro cactus, native to and a symbol of the desert (its blossom ... is one of the heavy-hitters in Scottsdale. “Arizona offers an incredible bounty ...