These are kinda sorta in reverse order because I STILL haven't figgered out my blog's way of configuring pictures...it's only been a little over 300 posts...give me some time eh?...Anyway, the hubs and I took a road trip to Anza-Borrega State Park and to Julian (a little mountain community) on Saturday. AB State Park is a beautiful desert known for its wild flowers in the Spring. We were about one weekend too late, but that didn't stop us...intrepid day trippers that we are. We hopped in his trusty truck and headed down Route 86 past the Salton Sea and we were on our way. The above picture is of my favorite cactus, which is an ocotillo (pronounced oko-tee-yo). It's a profusion of long, spiny sticks that look as though a firework has been caught frozen at the point of explosion. I love them. This weekend, we caught them in bloom. Their blossoms are bright orange and explode at the tips of the branches. Here, the sun light was sneaking between the branches...a tip I learned from the Dear Sweet One....thx Abby.
This is Peter waiting for me down by the truck. I love the pops of red...his shirt, the ladder, even the tail lights....What he was SAYING was, "I don't think you're going to find any barrel cactus up there"....but look at his body language...what he was THINKING, and later confirmed, was this, "How in the heck are you going to get DOWN from that height with your bad leg!?!"....and he was correct in being concerned....but I did it....
I love the color of red when it appears in nature....in the Midwest, you typically have to wait until the Fall to see the color red in great quantities, but here in the desert, we get it in the spring, as much as we're going to, anyway....so I snapped this little shrub...
This is desert sage. It blossoms this time of year. The blossoms are bright yellow and charming as all get out. They blossom a couple of inches above the actual plant so from a distance, they actually hover over the sage on rather invisible little stalks. After the sage dies out, it disconnects from the stalk, loses all of its greenery, and tumbles away....that's right....this is a tumbleweed in its embryonic form...whodda thunk they used to be so pretty and vibrant, right? Yep, this is a dying joke ready to happen....my kids will get that.....
Peter snapped this as I was wandering aimlessly looking for a place to take a picture. He said, "That's it, I took five, let's go".....okay......
Detail of the orange blossoms of the above mentioned ocotillo....
Prickly Pear cactus...these are edible and delicious.....
I loved the way the light was captured around the spines of this little cactus....the sun light seemed to linger around them...
Ditto on this particular cactus. Beautiful...especially with the green grass around it...so rare and fleeting...I suppose that's part of the beauty of this scene for us...we know that in a matter of perhaps days, this will be brown and back to the typical desert typography that we know, and typically love, so this fertile, green look is so unusual and beautiful to us, we had to experience it.
The beautiful ocotillo's typical fan shape...
Detail of the ocotillo branches reaching toward the blue sky....isn't that amazing???
Here is a carpet of wild, yellow flowers, a border of ocotillo and a backdrop of mountains bordered by the blue sky...I couldn't resist snapping it....
For you litch-a-chure buffs...
I have a fierce confession...one of my single most favorite things on the planet is my husband's face. And this is another truth: I absolutely hate...after five and half years of marriage...to turn the lights off at night...because I adore looking at it...I love that mug....so I have great fun playing with it after I snap a picture of it...I love editing and tweaking with my limited skills (and software), but this is the "after" picture of the one I took below. The hubs has a great face. He could be from the 40s or earlier....I have often wondered if he wasn't born a couple or more decades too late anyway...
This is while we were in Julian..duh, thanks Deb...it's a little "apple community"...that's what they grow there and and that's what they market...all things apple....I like that sign 'cause it reminds me of the hubs and I..."nuts and honey"....he's nuts and I'm honey....well, it made sense in my head when I snapped the picture....
This is where we go to get our favorite candy...we call it "bird bones" because that's the sound it makes when you chew on it...don't ask....Peter came up with it....
So...it's now Monday and back to the typical grind...Day trips are fun and nourishing and good for the soul. We were jazzed for Church on Sunday and had a great dinner with his daughter and her family last evening...all in all, a great weekend filled with love, nature, good food, great family, and all things wonderful....hope you had the same.... :)
So the trip to C-bus was a huge success...for us anyway. My daughter Emily and her family suffered greatly. They contracted a stomach virus and missed the blessing...and the family photo...that SHE ordered and orchestrated...at the Jeffrey Mansion in Bexley, but it went off without a hitch...inlaws and outlaws and the whole shebang....everywhere I turned I saw faces that I loved...laughter that rang out like music...it was heaven on earth for me during that brief time...the sun was just rising over the roof of that grand old house and the photographers captured it beautifully. I snapped some candids just to try to capture the randomness and the chaos of the day that translated into sheer joy for me...I guess you'd have to be a mother whose chicks have grown and flown to appreciate how fun it is when they all come together...so thank you Emily, for arranging this, honey....it was inspired and the fruits of it will live forever...and you'll get photoshopped in.... :)
