The Desert in Bloom.........

This will give you the idea that I love flowers, I do! I have tried to tell you how wonderful our journey so far has been, I do go on a bit, sorry.I hope you are all ok and enjoying what ever you are doing, we are just outside San Diego at the moment.I will try and send some photostake care with much love

Tuesday 12th February 2008

Well here we are in Mexico, Baja California. The scenery is amazing; these America’s are astonishing so much variation, rocks, trees, and cactus and flowers.
Back in the US the trip from Death Valley took us through the “Mojave National Preserve” The area has, like every where such a changing scene, as we drive through, we have sand dunes and because we are here in the early spring flowers in abundance, both on the ground and flowering cactus, we drive through Pinyon-Juniper trees and because we are in Mojave country Joshua Trees these trees can grow to 50ft!! they are however not trees but Yucca, in this preserve they grow very close together, making amazing weird and wonderful shapes in the desert ones imagination can run riot, we pass cactus – yucca scrub with cactus of every shape and size.
We also found a restored two story mission style building “kelso Depot” which was the rail road depot for the Union Pacific, very interesting, in the middle of the desert, a small town (we would call it a village) grew up around the depot this very small town had 2 post offices, 1 for black people, 1 for white people these folk lived side by side and depended on each other in all the problems life would have thrown at you in such a small desert town, to an English person this is very weird and uncomfortable even now, the weather here is very hot. We also went to the “the hole in the wall” (those Mormons again cutting the rock by hand to get their wagons through) had a nice walk here until things got a bit of a scramble over rocks (I am terrified of braking something) found a free camp for the night, tomorrow we head for the Joshua Tree National Park

Wednesday 13th February

On route to the Joshua Tree N.P. we drove some of route 66, this was so sad, all the glory days gone, most of the houses, motels, truck stops, have all been left to fall into disrepair, (unlike in Arizona where everything has been revived) a long the side of the road on a sandy rocky ridge 100’s of people have planted their names with rocks, there was also a tree covered with shoes 100’s of pairs, all that was left of this road that once was so full of life and fun.
We parked up for lunch, Les, Margaret and myself thought we heard people walking on the roof of the trucks, did not know how they got up there, it was however guns/bombs we had parked next to “Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Centre” whom I guess were having some kind a drill !!!! We ate our lunch without being blown up I am pleased to be able to tell youJ
Once in the park we went for a walk to see the Desert Fan Palm which is a native of California, in this hot and sparse environment a palm oases makes wonderful shade and in the pioneer days must have been a blessed respite, there are only 158 oases left in the whole of North America 4 of these are in Joshua Tree N.P.
We drove and walked round the upper area of the park which is the Mojave Desert to see the Joshua Trees, none grow in the southern area which is the Colorado Desert, These trees are totally amazing every one is a different size and shape they are twisted and spiky and I guess prickly but I did not check that out! Some of the shapes are grotesque; the tallest tree in the park today is 40ft high and is estimated to be 300 years old. Another truly wonderful day.

Thursday 14th February 2008

It is a cold cold day. We are still in the Joshua Tree N.P going south into the Colorado Desert which this time of year is famous for flowers, but there is no sun so all the flowers are closed up, sad, we went for a walk around the Cholla Cactus Garden the top of these cactus appear to have soft silver bristles these account for the common name “Teddy Bear Cactus” or “Jumping Cholla” they do not jump but will if you brush against them stick into you and brake away from the main plaint, this apparently is very painful and removing the spines from your body is even more painful. The main cactus drops this small ball, which looks very pretty onto the ground from this a new cactus will grow, I touched one with the toe of my shoe and it stuck into my shoe (much laughter) it was very hard to dislodge, dare not touch it, then I had all these whiskers sticking out from the toe of my shoe which I had to scrap along the ground to get out, didn’t do the shoe much goodJ it was a wonderful little walk with a leaflet tell about what we were looking at. The most widespread plant is the “Creosote Bush” which really does smell just like creosote. We even saw several “Desert Wood Rat” nest’s, an empty nest is never vacant for long, as another Wood Rat will take up residents adding more debris to the pile, Nests have been found that are over 10,000 years old, complete with ancient plant remains buried in the centre.
I have never seen a desert in this season it is so beautiful, the flowers were amazing some so tiny, some so bright in colour, it was a shame they were not open but the colour and the amount was terrific.

Friday 15th February 2008


To day we head for the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, this proved to be very similar to the Joshua Tree N P with Octillo which is a tall spindly plant whose leaves sprout from its straight spindly, well I would call them twigs they are not branches, stems? may be sticks! On the very top of the sticks their flowers are bright red, they look like candles as each bush had a number of sticks the desert looked full of candelabras! There were more Cholla and flowers, today the sun is shining they are just beautiful. We took a walk to an Oasis with over 100 Desert Fan Palms that was lovely.
We could wild camp here in this park we found a nice spot, flat ect Les went of birding watching Margaret and I were having a cup of tea, a very nice young man came to tell us we had parked in the middle of the YMCA weekend boys camp there were going to be over 100 children with their dads, I think he was more concerned about the noise the dads might make at night then the children, any way we decided to stop we leave at 8 o clock every morning, much to our surprise the night was very peaceful.J

Saturday 16th February 2008

Well today we arrive in Mexico, the boarder was very easy infact we just drove straight into Mexico no barrier, nothing, we got some money then walked back to get our passport stamped with an entree visa, this caused a little problem because we did not get an exit visa stamp when we left!!!
We then thought we should at least try and get an exit visa from the USA, going back to the gate we then got stop by a soldier with a gun!! He just laughed and told us to go to the entrée into the USA, this caused quite a stir, with us being told to go back to the stop sign and wait!! The out come was that a stamp to leave the US was not required, we hope that is correctJ
Back into Mexico! With its loud music crowds of people, broken cars, speed bumps (hate them) bad drivers and the most delicious fish for lunch in Ensenada.
We spent the next 3 days driving to Nuerroro Negro through the mountains and high desert, this drive is awesome flowers, cactus, wonderful very tall trees with no branches, just leaves growing out of the tree all the way to the top, and on the very top red flowers or leaves, making some looked like Christmas trees with a fairy on the top! It was such an enjoyable drive, arriving at Nuerroro Negro we stopped on a campsite for a couple of days because tomorrow we will go Whale watching!!!! Which I have already written about.

Friday 22nd February 2008

Today we drove to San Ignacio this is a lovely little town with one of the finest Churches in this part of Mexico, started by the Jesuits in the early 1700’s and finished by the Dominican’s in 1786 the church is a fine example of a Spanish building of that time, we walk around the very small village, The first Dominican bishop had also planted a large number of date palm’s which are still there today we were able to buy a very enjoyable date flan. After a very nice lunch at the “Rice and Beans” restaurant we turn around to start our journey north into Canada and Alaska.

Monday 25th February 2008

Tomorrow we will be back in the US.
The journey through this part of the country has been magnificent so very beautiful, “The Desert in Bloom” when parking in the desert each morning there is a carpet of colour flowers everywhere so many it is impossible to walk without treading on them, everywhere you look there are carpets of flowers, yellows and purples seem to be the most common but sometimes a mix of the two in amongst there are whites and orange, ofcourse green so many different shades each corner we go around has been a surprise and a joy to see, with cactus standing high, or clinging to rocks and little tiny ones so many shapes and sizes. We have been in this wonderland for a week, travelling some 1108 miles I have never seen so many wild flowers any where in the world, we have been so luck to have come at this time of year, it does not seem possible that in a couple of months the sun will have turned all this brown and barren I have so enjoyed this trip to Baja, also diesel is only 25p Litre! BonusJ I have just read all that I have written and I guess you know by now that the flowers and the desert are beautiful, I have gone on a bit!!