OK, every now and then I have to pull a little linguistic rank just to remind myself of why I took four years of college French. But like good old Marcel with his madeleine cookies (the smell of which conjured up a host of childhood memories and sent him off into a seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past), the scent of tequila, triple sec, and freshly squeezed limes (with or without a whiff of chlorine blowing onto the deck chairs off the backyard pool) can send me careering down memory lane to happy times growing up in southern Arizona. The olfactory can also help jump start the visual, and before I know it, I've got the russets, ochers, and carmines at the end of another day in the desert swimming before my eyes. (And with a few more margaritas, I sometimes hear singing kangaroo mice in there, too.)

We Tucsonans (and expatriate Tucsonans) are justifiably proud of our Technicolor sunsets (as long as we can keep at bay the nagging thought that they're largely the result of all the dust, car exhaust, and other crap floating around in the air). But seriously, the sight of the sun going down over the Tucson mountains can still take your breath away, whether it's the first time or the one-thousand-first time you experience it. Along with a really good chimichanga and the smell of the desert after a summer rain, a boffo sunset (with or without accompanying margarita) is something you miss deeply when you move away.

However, Seattle is no slouch itself when it comes to splendiferous puestas del sol. True, they don't occur as often up here as they do in the southwest (although, pssst, the rumors of all the doom and gloom in Puget Sound are kept alive mostly by "natives" -- defined as anyone who's lived here more than three years -- who don't want anyone else to move here), but when they do, they can knock your flippers off.

Return to Top of Page