Linda ran the car under the shade of a tall clump of bloom-whitened alders.

She took off her hat, loosened the hair at her temples, and looked out across the long morning stretch of desert.
"It's just beginning to be good," she said.

She began pointing with her slender hand.

"That gleam you see over there is the gold of a small clump of early poppies.

The purple beyond it is lupin.