Happy Spring!!!

Happy Spring Equinox from Oro Valley! Beth and I hiked today to mark the first official day of spring. It was a beautiful, sunny day with blankets of golden poppies. We shared the 50 Year Trail with hikers, horses, donkeys and dogs and got a good workout.

This year's equinox comes at 11:06 p.m. EDT today, which will be the precise moment the sun's rays shine directly on the equator. Today is one of two days a year -- the other being the autumnal equinox in September -- when Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in roughly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness almost everywhere on the planet.

Just for fun, I looked back at photos I took on the spring equinox one, five, 10 and 20 years ago.

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One year ago:

These two are from last year. I hiked and took a picture of the blooming cactus quilt that I had just finished.

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Five years ago:

It must have been chilly and cloudy on the equinox in 2019 in Sedona, because I was inside my rental house wrapping up this Sedona-inspired quilt instead of being outside hiking. For many years I spent the month of March hiking in Sedona. Now that I live in Tucson (Oro Valley to be precise), there's no need to make an escape to the sunny Southwest. (Sedona is only three hours away.)

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Ten years ago:

My son and his wife visited me in Sedona in 2014 and it was a good day for hiking!

Rachel did a Dancer's Pose at a restaurant later in the day.

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Twenty years ago:

Keith popped up again in my 2004 spring equinox photos. It was Spring Break for my two teens and on our last day of vacation we were at my sister's house in Denver with her dog.

Kathleen showed me some furniture she had painted with flowers -- very pretty and springlike!

Then we headed to the airport to fly back to Illinois, ending our vacation and ending this post! Hope you have a wonderful first day of spring, wherever you are!

Happy Spring