Anza-Borrego, Part Three.

Talk about milking a gig – Part Three, and I may not even be done yet!

This place was a trip, a real challenge for a New England boy, used to forested hills and fields of green.  We had approached Anza-Borrego Desert State Park from the east, driving up out of the Salton Sea, which looked completely uninhabitable to me, then gaining a little elevation into a bowl of desert surrounded by mountains.

They weren’t particularly large until you contemplate their passage.  On foot.

The valley bottom was riddled with shallow “canyons,” drainages where the seasonal rains would gather to grow green things in an otherwise brown world:

This desert chickory was cool, having a diferent light than our bluish Eastern version:

And the washes, despite their dry sand surfaces, were awash with Spring:

Climbing up out of the drainages, the desert assumed the angularity of a landscape hewn by the wind:

These lilies were amazing – I loved the tight kinks of their leaves and the intensity of their white blossoms:

Frau B suggested that we check out an area promisingly known as the Desert Garden, which proved to be an excellent call:

Blue agaves provided the appropriate punctuation to this landscape of light:

…and were in turn accented by an array of wildflowers:

Chuparosas and ocotillos punctuated the scene, dancing in the wind as we waited to shoot between the stronger gusts:

Eventually it got so windy that we didn’t know whether to hang onto our cameras or our hats:

…so we packed it up and headed back north.

But that’s another post!