I promise that I am not obsessed with the whole wildflower thing. Well, ok, maybe a little. But I enjoy Spring in general, and I particularly enjoy it here in Southern California when the wildflowers are in bloom. 
Lots of people are convinced that we don't really think we get seasons in Southern California, but I can promise you that we do. They're just a bit different from the seasons in other parts of the world....A couple of days ago, I drive down to the Anza-Borrego State Park with our friends (and soon to be neighbors) Larry and Ed Sogolow. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California. Five-hundred miles of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas and miles of hiking trails provide visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to experience the wonders of the California Desert.
The park is named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish name borrego, or bighorn sheep. It's located just about an hour+ south of Palm Springs in San Diego County. The park features washes, wildflowers, palm groves, cacti, badlands, and sweeping vistas. It also runs almost right up to the Salton Sea - yet another of Southern California's interesting micro climates. But that's another story.
This Winter was rainy, which generally means a good wildflower season. And starting last week, the weather really warmed up, and that brings the blooms out.
I've included some of the pictures I took on our recent trip, and have uploaded many more of them on an album you can view at your leisure. If you want to come out, there's still time. Wildflower are peaking in the next couple of weeks in the lower elevations but will continue to flood the desert with color all the way up to the high desert and Joshua Tree for at least another month.
Yellow flowers that you'll see include (but are not limited to) creosote bush, brittlebush, palo verde, desert sunflowers, dune sunflowers, barrel cactus, desert dandelions, century plants and bladder pods.
Pink and purple flowers include Arizona Lupine (which are featured in several good shots), sand verbena, desert aster, chia and monkey flowers. The Ocotillo were also in full bloom while we were in Anza-Borrego, and we got quite a few shots of them as well.
We also took some time to explore the badlands that are part of, and adjacent to the park. They always remind me of the old westerns I used to watch as a kid.
Some of the box canyons will definitely look familiar to you if you love that genre of movie and/or remember shows like the Virginian.
I had a major crush on actor Doug McClure (RIP) who played Trampas on that show! Actor James Drury wasn't bad either! But I digress...Finally we took a detour and went down to the Salton Sea. If you want to see a surreal world, you need look no further. Block upon block of infrastructure, but with no buildings. Entryways
marking planned communities that never got built. Block after block of empty and/or abandoned buildings. Abandoned docks, boats left to rot in the mud, some rather interesting churches, homes and a million birds!
And despite it all, there is a tragic beauty to the Salton Sea. To see the Salton Sea sitting in the middle of the California Desert is quite an experience!
