825 North Desert Avenue

Let's start a sunny, warm January day with the sun (and the moon) on a plain gray mailbox — painted by a young artist, I'm guessing:

The west side of the box has flowers around a heart:

I found the box on my early-morning ride November 7th.

5142 East Lee Street

There's no was I could I miss this red mailbox with white flowers as I rolled along Lee Street. (By the way, Lee is a great east-west bicycling street that's even quieter than Pima — which is just a block north.)

It caught my eye on November 7th.

5714 East Lee Street

We usually don't show mailboxes with posts made of chain. But this black box is too different — at least, I haven't seen anything like it yet! Its “post,” made of bicycle or motorcycle chain, is in the shape of Arizona.

I rolled by on my November 7th ride and almost missed it; the chain looked like a jumble. Something made me stop and look a bit more…

2001 North Ridgeway Road

Here's a mailbox with blue-green desert plants on a lavender background and a snake-shaped flag...

The other side and the front are faded — probably by the sun:

I slithered by on November 7th.

1003 North Sonoita Avenue

This gorgeous handpainted mailbox popped out along my early-morning bike ride November 7th. But the lighting — spots of bright sunshine and a mailbox with both black and white parts — made getting a good photograph a challenge. I've edited the photos to try to bring out the design:

That's the front of the mailbox.

711 South Erin Avenue

This cheery blue mailbox — with touches of red and a light-green post and door — made me feel at home on October 26, 2015.

4755 East 17th Street

This plain gray mailbox is covered with stencils (?) of horses.

I galloped by (on my bicycle) October 26th.

5853 E. North Wilshire Drive

Let's start the new year at a mailbox decorated for one of places — the Orient. (It's west of the International Date Line, which means the time there is much later; it's far east of Arizona — so much that the day can be tomorrow there when it's “today” here. Think how New York's celebration at midnight in Times Square happens at 10 PM Arizona Time? And so on even farther east: midnight in London is 4 PM in Tucson.)

But enough world geography… this is a mailbox blog!

I'm not quite sure where this box is located. It's south of Park Place Mall. That neighborhood has both East North Wilshire Drive and East Wilshire Terrace. Bing Maps Streetside shows a home on E. North Wilshire, but it shows the house number as 5888 instead of the 5853 I wrote down. Hmmm.

Anyway, if you drive into that part of E. North Wilshire you'll see this mailbox on a stoneware post.

You can look forward to bunches of boxes in 2016.