Cave Creek flows through the Spur Cross Preserve year-round.

In mid-March, before all the flowers burned up, my Belgian neighbor "W" and I headed up into the Spur Cross Preserve north of Phoenix for a bit of riparian solitude and quiet. What we got was Lexuses full of loud mouthed, cell phone equipped Resort Poodles. These horrible life forms inhabit the Scottsdale and Carefree areas during the cooler months, sometimes wandering out of the golf courses and spas into Actual Nature. Clad in the latest and most expensive GoreTex-wrapped, UV-blocking fashions, they spend the winter loudly spreading their enlightened and always negative opinions regarding everything in sight as it compares to the Platonic Form of Cultural and Aesthetic Perfection: New York.

"W," who shares a native Arizonan's distaste for these peculiar creatures, wondered aloud if they were "in season" as a particularly shrill female discoursed at length about some relative's medical conditions as we hiked as fast as we could to escape. A half mile later, we were happily out of ear shot of the yapping pack.

"W" moving quickly uphill to escape chatty Snow Birds above Cave Creek.

All things considered, we had a great hike. No rabid mountain lions were spotted (one was shot a couple of weeks prior a few miles from here after attempting to drag a boy away from his armed family for a quick luncheon) and no Resort Poodles were attacked by venemous "Jump Snakes" dropping from the Palo Verdes (I'm always careful to warn our out-of-town friends about this little known predator - Try it! Really keeps 'em in their cars.)