Tough Spring

It has been a crummy month, hence no blogs. On the happy side I hat a few days of lovely cycling in Vancouver and environs. The cherry blossoms in Vancouver at this time of year are worth a visit.

Gardens, flowers and seeds

The seed catalogue owners are getting smart, this year they sent some catalogues out before Christmas. It was fun to start speculating about what I'd like to grow as the new year started. I still haven't decided, I'm always a bit of an optimist, hoping that flowers I love will grow here. Each year I try a few different things, some are grand successes, others (more of them) dismal failures. I am particularly excited this year because I have new scope for my endeavours. The back yard is finally land scaped giving me (us) 3 built and soil filled raised beds. The local agriculture branch even tested the soil for us. It is a good growing medium, it just needs to be beefed up with 20-20-20 (or the organic equivilant of blood meal and bone meal).

What should I take a chance on?

White Knuckle Drive

So far we'd avoided nasty road conditions pretty much. There were a few washouts, but nothing insurmountable until today. Holy @#$@#!

Anza Borrego

The rain just didn't stop. I don't know what to say. The lack of sun was really sad. So, after sending the camping stuff we never used it. When i say rain, I mean biblical, torrential, 30 days and 30 nights kinda stuff. Stepping outside was like stepping into a high end shower. There is nothing to do indoors in Borrego Springs. Sigh.

More Desert Rain

So the question now is; 'where do we go'. The entire southwest of California, parts of Arizona and on east are socked in, subject to extreme rain. Or as they put it in the desert; 'an 80% chance of measurable rain'. That @#$@# is supposed to go on until we fly back to Whitehorse. Don't get me wrong, I'm no shrinking violet. A little rain won't deter me. However, when it rains in the desert, it pours. There is so much rain just stepping outside is litle stepping into a shower. Stay tuned gentle readers... who knows where we'll end up...

Joshua Tree

We had a restful night at the 29 Palms Inn. The coyotes here are lippy buggers though. They were having some sort of hootenanny last night. You just had to know their celebration was bad news for someone else.

We we woken with the desert dawn by a huge flock of California Quails (also called Gambrel's Quail I believe). They were amazingly cute with little dangling feathers on their heads running around, bobbing, weaving and generally making a racket. we figured since we were up, we might as well get going, seeing as the sun was actually shining. We ate and drove into Joshua Tree National Park looking for a hike. Yesterday I bought a Joshua Tree hiking map and today it paid for itself. It's funny, there are lots of hiking trails on the map, but none of them seem to be sign posted at the road. We had a fabulous hike. We just walked up a wash into the mountains, looking for the mine that was the genesis of the hike. We never did find the mine site, but we had a fabulous hike. We even saw a Bobcat. My first ever Bobcat sighting. I also saw a Jackrabbit and a few Antelope Ground Squirrels.

By the time we turned around an headed back we we kind of amazed at how far we went and how long we were gone. It was just so pleasant hiking along the wash looking at the flora and trying to see the fauna. Keep in mind the whole time there is spotty sunshine. Not too bad we thought. We drove through part of the park between 29 Palms and Joshua Tree (the town, not the park). There were fields of Joshua Trees some of which actually looked like trees once they got big enough. We also did a short interpreted trail that disclosed the existence of a desert oak and the pine tree from whence pine nuts fall. The landscape here is beautiful and surreal. My DH and I find we actually like it, unlike our previous desert experience which was Mojave/ Chihuahua in Texas.

29 Palms

If you read the last post you know we got rained on. We are hard core, but didn't bring camping gear suitable for the rain. Thinking; 'we are going to the desert, it won't rain there'. We stayed at a nice place and had some good times.