There are beautiful parts of the desert, but most of them still require a measureable amount of vegetation or just mountains. Plus, the only time you can enjoy them is the winter, during the summer it's just too brutally hot to enjoy anything except being right on a river. No such thing as spring/fall really.
Edit: The weird thing is, I have been here so long, that even though I enjoy trees/green, I get semi "claustrophobic" when I visit home. It's going to be weird going back to NC when I get out of the Marines. I am very used to the wide open spaces.