The deserts of Northern Arizaona are very green because of all the rains

Where I was today it was about 102 degrees and then the clouds and rain came in and it dropped down to about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of all the rain all the prickly pears are purple and ripe so I ate a few. If you have never eaten a prickly pear be very careful. the easiest way is if you have grey duct tape or Gorilla tape and you grab each one with the tape between your fingers and the prickly pear. Then you pull the very ripe prickly pear off the cactus. Then you take a lighter to burn off the teeny tiny barbs you mostly cannot see that will cause you a lot of problems if you don't burn them off. Then what I do is slice the prickly pear down the middle and cut the pear out of each half sort of like you might cut out a cantaloupe with pieces to eat with a knife. There are many seeds within the prickly pear so mostly I spit them out where I am eating this pear. They are red or purple inside usually when they are ripe to eat and taste a lot like a softer pear with a whole lot of little seeds in the center.

The prickly pear survives by having birds eat it and then they scatter the seeds all over the desert in their feces which fertilizes the prickly pear and starts a new set of prickly pear cactus. So, if there is enough rain that year in the desert you are going to see thousands of prickly pear plants bearing prickly pears right about now in northern Arizona and wherever else they are growing in Arizona or other places right now.
This is what the ones I picked looked like today.

This is a guy or lady cutting one open with welding gauntlets (leather on) to protect their fingers from the little teeny barbs.

But, if when you see them you don't have any welding gauntlets or really thick gloves you can make do with Grey duct Tape or gorilla duct tape(gorilla tape is usually black with stronger adhesive than grey.

I carry black Gorilla tape for any emergency I encounter while 4 wheeling if something shakes loose under the vehicle for a temporary repair if I'm 50 miles from the nearest gas station.

Some people also carry semi thick steel wire to tie up exhaust systems that break loose or license plates that might come loose or whatever. It's good to be prepared with enough water and snacks and food and whatever when it's 100 or more out so you can actually survive anything that might happen.

Today my older daughter took me to a Shaman's cave on a high red bluff. I didn't expect a class 4 climb on bare feet for traction with 150 plus feet of exposure(if you fell you would fall 150 feet or more straight down. So, I was freaking out for a moment because I wasn't sure at 68 I had enough feeling or control of my bottoms of my feet for this to survive it. I did it anyhow and got to see this really amazing sort of UFO shaped Cave in the Red Rock likely used by Medicine men and women and Vision questers for thousands of years there. IT's a really cool place my daughter had been to before in 2011 with her boyfriend and other friends. So, she really wanted me to see this amazing place too.

After my momentary panic I actually wound up going across it 4 times (two times each way) by the end of the day. I was happy to see I still can climb barefoot on sandstone. It's been a few years now.

But, my daughter is still only 27 and very coordinated still (like most people in my family) and sort of danced across it which embarrassed me into just doing it but I realized she was right. I still could do this which was good.