Q: Why do people paint the trunks of their citrus trees white?

A: HA! At last, a question we actually knew the answer to without having to look it up or ask somebody. It’s to protect them from the sun.

We are soooooo smart.

To celebrate, we asked an actual newcomer in the office if she knew why citrus trunks are painted white, and she said it was to repel insects. These comical newcomers.We were going to laugh at her until we remembered she is much higher up the food chain than us and holds what passes for our career in her elegant and well-manicured hands. So we didn’t laugh.

Just to double-check, and to look busy, we called Ralph Backhaus, a professor of plant biology at Arizona State University.

Every now and then, as I search across Arizona for things of an unusual nature, something pops up as a complete surprise, something I’d never heard about even though I thought I’d seen ‘em all. Several of them did that to me recently as I wandered across the northern part of the state, and they involve elephants. Or things that evoke mental images of elephants.

They’re actually rock formations, but they look like elephant feet. Great big elephant feet.

Two of them stand along Highway 160, at Tonalea some 20 miles east of Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation. They’re giant sandstone pillars and they look so much like elephant feet that you don’t even have to squint your eyes to get the picture. The fact that the pillars are grayish white and brownish red instead of gray does not affect the illusion. Nor does the fact that they’re about 20 feet tall make any difference. Who knows how big them desert-stompers were billions of years ago?

Coal Mine Canyon is one of Arizona’s lesser-known treasures because it’s easy to miss. And, perhaps, because of the ghosts.

There are no signs pointing to the canyon; the only markers are a windmill and watering tank on the side of the road southeast of Tuba City. But those who find it will be entranced by the multicolored hoodoos that rise sharply form the floor of the canyon to create a many-hued splash in an otherwise dull brown flatland. The hoodoos, shaped like those in Utah’s Bryce Canyon, are the result of underground fires and eons of erosion. They and the sidewalls of the canyon are colored in different layers. The black layer just below the rim is a seam of coal; the others are probably the result of combustion that caused some of the coal layers to burn so intensely that the shale turned red.

Overnight camping is allowed at the site but those who plan to stay after dark should know about the ghost stories told by both Native Americans and Anglos.

There are many colorful rock formations spread across Arizona, and some of the more spectacular are located in Canyon deChelly on the Navajo Reservation at Chinle. The most prominent is Spider Rock, a towering sandstone obelisk that rises almost 900 feet above the floor of the canyon. Others aren’t quite as spectacular, but they’re nearly as large and they look like gigantic slates, kids mittens and huge lumps of red clay that were just dumped there by some giant sculptor.