Aloha Everyone,
Anza-Bottego Desert State Park is located in the Colorado Desert of Southern California. Borrego is the Spanish word for bighorn sheep where the animals reside favoring its rocky hilly habitat. The state park is the largest in California with 600,000 acres and the second largest in the contiguous United State after Adirondack Park in New York.
My daughter-in-law's invitation to this new destination and hearing that this year the wild flowers are cited as "Super bloom" was especially alluring for me.
Our first excitement came when we saw several cars parked along the side of the mountain road. Seeing some people with binoculars and telephoto lens, we stopped the car and inquired what we were supposed to be viewing. If you look at the upper section of the left half of the hill, you might be able to discern white shapes with legs. Longhorn sheep! We counted 10 of them, but unfortunately my iPhone 5 camera is not powerful enough to capture their images.
The park visitor center's parking lot was full. We were directed to the Mall where there was a flower viewing information table manned by Jimmy.
With a map in hand, my daughter-in-law and I soon found our way into miles and miles of flower fields.
Each fields had different patches of colors, some had mixture of bright colors, yet others had nearly monochromatic blanket of yellow. Both of us snapping photos of flowers and each other that the time sped by us quickly.
One unexpected incident was when a large yellow and black striped caterpillar we saw in abundance decided to hitch a ride. I felt something, looked down and saw this wiggling caterpillar scaling vertically up my pants. I called out to my daughter-in-law to help me remove it with the map she was holding. She happily obliged but not before snapping several photos of the creature for the rest of the family to see. :-)
This was a truly a wonderful outing. We spent a total of 9 hours enjoying the drive through beautiful countryside, viewing the super bloom, and giving a chance for the two of us to bond.
For our family, we purchased a couple of slices of delicious apple pies from the Julian Pie Company located in Santa Ysabel.
(This is part 1 of 3 series.)
Aloha -- Cathi
