Word: desert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wind dries them, and then they inflate like lungs and rise on the desert air. They come out of the sea like Portuguese men-of-war and then, amphibious, as if in some Darwinian drama, sail off to litter another of the earth's last emptinesses. Reverse Darwin, really: devolution, a flight of death forms...
North of Yuma, east of the Colorado River and smack in the middle of nowhere, Quartzsite is not an official town. Never incorporated, possessing no mayor, no schools, no stoplight, no town water or sewer system, no zoning rules or local police, the "gem of the desert" is home year round to maybe a thousand people...
...They are refugees from the frozen North, most of them retirees making their seasonal escape in RVs. Then, usually in April, when the temperature begins to rise and the lure of the North is greater, the huge encampment with its bustling activity rolls away, evaporating like runoff from a desert cloudburst...
...People can't figure out why we're out here and why we aren't bored," says Gerry Bloomquist, enjoying the sunset with her neighbor Mary Lueth. Back home in Minnesota, the Bloomquists and Lueths live an hour apart; here in the desert they live at either end of a laundry line. "Oops, there's our noise for the day," cracks Gerry, looking up at four Army helicopters...
They also like to dance on it. South of town is the Stardusty Ballroom, where twice a week in season 300 ballroom dancers fox-trot and waltz to the supple beat of a five-piece band that displays its name, Desert Varnish, on maroon baseball caps. The dance floor is made of plywood panels, and the ceiling is the blue Arizona sky. DANCE AT YOUR OWN RISK reads the sign posted near a huge cactus. Couples dance in the desert, romance hovering like heat haze; some dress in matching colors. Stuck in the ground around them are plastic hyacinths, windmills...