1700 HOURS PDT March 17, 2010 ANZA BORREGO DESERT SGTATE PARK, CALIFORNIA
After nearly freezing to death in the March blizzard in central Utah on I-15, we finally pulled into Valley of Fire State Park east of Last Vegas mid afternoon on Sunday. It wa swarm but not really hot, but the red rocks and green desert flora was a sight for sore eyes after the black, white and endless gray of the Montana winter. Here’s Sporty set up for the first night of camping this season.
The campground host said it has been a cool spring and that they had survived a major windstorm earlier in the week that had blown over a truck camper in the campgrtound. Glad to have missed that one!
We met an interesting woman AnnaBelle from Whitehorse in the Yukon travelling around the Southwest in her customized Sprinter. She had much good advice for traveling the Dempster Highway in the Arctic which we hope to do later in the summer.
One of these days we have to spend more than a day in Valley of Fire and check out all the short hikes, but next morning it was on the road to Joshua Tree National Park. Here’s more great red rocks around the campground.
There was not much blooming at the higher desert elevations in Joshua Tree yet, but the Octotillos had leafy out.
Finally, we ran into flowering Ocotillios in the Borrego Badlands in the eastern reaches of Anza Borrego on Tuesday.
Before camping at Arroyo Salado on Tuesday night, we travelled down the wash to see the 17 Palms Oasis.
Here’s the Expedition Photographer and Sporty stopped at the Palm Grove.
There were several flowers in bloom, not all of which I have identified yet.
Around the campsite were dozens of Desert Lillies, a spectacular flower we have never seen in bloom before.
This morning, we drove over to Borrego Palm Canyon Campground to check out the blooms surrounding the mountain foothills. There’s a ton of flowers to see, including these white blooms (Datura?) and the brilliant pink Sand Verbena.
More news from the road tomorrow. Lots of fellow Sportsmobiles sighted and even an EarthRoamer from Montana.