ARIZONA

The TOP 3 most beautiful and MUST SEE locations in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.

3. A peak of South Mountain, in the early, early morning of early summer.

Take an early morning drive to South Mountain.

The morning should be bright and robin's egg, with traces of deep indigos and powdery purples and oranges from the sunrise in progress. The city will be its familiar dusty golden beige, tranquil in the twilight. South mountain should be visible over the city, rising in rhythmic swells.

Drive with the windows down and pick up your friends from their parents' small, dusty old houses nestled in the low sprawl of Southern Phoenix. Take the short drive in comradely silence. Park, and then hike up the foothills of the mountain, taking in the gentle glow of ancient red stones, appreciating the mild-mannered company of saguaro cacti, respectfully spaced, standing gentle watch on every side, and marveling at the vast city and the desert and the distant mountains in every direction revealing themselves more with every step. After half an hour or so, take a pause at a small peak, and bring out your cheap soft grocery-store baguette and some industrial brie: it'll be the best thing you've ever tasted. Now, talk about love, for the first ever time in your life, with your friends, in halting, awkward phrases, before lapsing into happy silence and basking in the early morning glow. Before the sun rises too far, retreat down the mountain and into darkness and shade.

2. A highway overpass in North Phoenix during late, late spring.

It should be near the end of school year, when you're preparing for that long period of summer dormancy, where you hide and stay inside and try to move as little as possible. But it isn't summer yet, and you should filled with energy. The air is cool, but you can feel the threat of heat behind it. The sky is a dusty pale blue.

You might be trying to figure out what to do: here, let me tell you. Grab your closest friends, drive to the grocery store, and wander the aisles, deciding what to make. Make mac and cheese- but invent your own recipe, something outlandish. Grab a pomegranate (the pomegranates are great, in Phoenix), a funny cheese, a spice mix, heavy cream. Stay somewhere in the north, where North Mountain starts to vaguely trouble the city, creating some topography. Cook the mac and cheese, laughing, joking, saying whatever comes to mind. For dessert, whip the cream by hand, passing it back and forth, and then feed it to each other, making eye contact. Then go out into the warm desert night, go to the highway overpass and watch the cars. Play this game: run across, pretending like you're on the street below, trying to not get hit.

1. A puddle of winter sunlight in a grand old brick house in the historic Roosevelt Row.

The best time for viewing is in march, when the chill of the nights is beginning to soften, but the daytimes are still blessed with that peculiar bright blue coolness that is the desert's apology for the summer heat.

You should find the grand old brick house in Roosevelt Row, that small scrap of victorian Phoenix nestled near its center, with its row of old oaks and other alien, east-coast transplants trees miraculously and incongruously shading the desert streets, getting stirred by the rare breeze,

To enjoy it most perfectly, there should be a pack of 4 week old kittens stumbling around with guileless wonder, and also you should be there visiting your most melancholy friend, who is sick with unrequited love, but who today is unusually glowing with contentedness, housesitting this grand old house in the most perfect desert weather surrounded by kittens. Set up a chessboard in that puddle of winter sunlight and attempt to play a game, while the kittens clumsily crawl all over you and the board and knock around the pieces.

So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.