Painted Desert (Arizona) plateau's south border the Mogollon Rim, the north border of the Arizona transition zone. Owing to the strong rain shadow of the Mogollon Rim, the Painted Desert has a cold desert climate (Köppen "BWk"), with hot, dry summers and cold, though virtually snow-free winters. The annual precipitation is the lowest in northern Arizona and in many places is lower even than Phoenix. Much of the region is accessible only by foot or unpaved road though major highways and paved roads cut across the area. The towns of Cameron and Tuba City, both on the Navajo Nation, are two major settlements.
In the Desert In the Desert "In the Desert" is the name given to a poem written by Stephen Crane (1871–1900), published in 1895 as a part of his collection, "The Black Riders and Other Lines". "In the Desert" is the third of fifty-six short poems published in this volume. Crane's poetry has been given significantly less scholarly attention than his fiction. In fact, none of Crane's poems were anthologized until 1926. When the poems were published, Crane was criticized for the unusual form of the poems and was said to have some nerve in presenting these "disjointed effusions" as poetry. The first