Well - I have to admit that it is weird kind of desert. On one side of the road are fascinatingly different and luxurious houses with their designed desert style gardens and the lush golf course roadside gardens outside the mile upon mile of luxury walled golf courses and their associated resorts - while on the other side of the road are ominously dry mountains of rock with flat and desperately dry tracts between where almost nothing will grow.
So far I have had a few runs along the beautiful gardened concrete foot paths which often meander off into the surrounding desert. I am intending to do a 10 k run across the desert itself - a gravel path laid out for hikers which goes through a desert canyon to a lake. I am seriously loving this running.