Carrot Ranch July 20 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about a surprise from a desert.
Jane struggles, breathing the damp. She’s been here three years but it’s still not home. It’s beautiful, sure. Snowy peaks backing endless trees and sparkling water. It’s almost trite.
She misses low scrub-covered hills, rocky ground studded with thorns, even scorpions. The springtime hills gradually shading, palest green to mauve, smudged blue at sundown. Clean smell of sage. Night sky like a celestial jewel box. The city has no stars.
People thought her desert monotonous, without beauty. They didn’t know how to look.
If she can save a dollar a day, she’ll have a bus ticket in four months.
Author note:I guess the surprise is in missing it! This prompt hit close to my heart. It’s beautiful here in the PNW, but the desert will always be home to me. Dream Girl and I are traveling home to visit Monster and the rest of the family for a week in August. Life is good.
99 Monkeys 
I’ll step outside for you and breathe in the sage…it’s been so powerful after the heat of day subsides to cool of night. Have you been across the Cascades to this desert? I think you might like it! You could come over and visit me in my trailer and we’ll take a ride out into the sage and coulees! Jane has the right of it, those memories are the desert gems.
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I have not yet been east of the Cascades, but I want to. It would be great to meet you!
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