The Desert

One of the best things about Southern California is the variety of land out here. From San Diego I can drive an hour and a half north and hit the snow-capped mountains, and hour east and hit the fall foliage of Julian, and a little farther east and you've run into the desert. So, to celebrate the arrival of "Spring" (we don't really have spring here, but take a leap of faith that our weather does in deed change at ALL) Justin and I headed to the Anza-Borrego Dessert for the blooming of the wild flowers this past weekend. Although we missed some of them by a few weeks, we did get to see tons of tiny flowers in bloom all along the roadside. We stopped at the Ocotillo Forest to check out the bright red flowers on the ends of these "trees" and the little yellow desert dandelions. Let me tell you what! This desert thing is the place for Jen and Lou! Oh, the creatures! We saw huge caterpillars and a desert hare. When we stopped to take a picture, we heard these huge black crows flap their wings along the ridge where we stood. It was amazing! Totally unlike anything I've ever seen before. And practically right in my backyard :)

This photo on the left is a shot of me with one of the metal (tin?) animals along the side of the road. They call it the Prehistoric Garden, but I'm pretty sure elephants are in our current world. Yes? Still pretty fun. The detail was out of control, and seeing these huge animals randomly spring up along the flat roadside made the long drive interesting. The photo on the right is a shot of one of my favorite types of organisms in the desert. It's called the Teddy Bear Cholla. It looks like you could pet it, it's so fuzzy, but look is the operative word here. Things things are covered in spikes! In fact, right after Justin warned me to keep my feet apart I hit my right foot against my left calf and got a huge cholla stuck in there. Luckily I stopped myself before pulling the spiky devil out and waited for Justin to yank it off me with his hat.