Desert bloom

For those of you in other parts of the world, here’s a summary of the California’s winter that has thankfully just ended: wet. State-of-emergency, record-breaking, get-the-canoe-ready kind of wet. I personally noticed that things were getting extreme when I started hearing the terms “atmospheric river” and “bomb cyclone” more often than “traffic jam” and “vegan burrito”. But, other than destruction and toenail fungus, one thing that massive amounts of rain bring, is the potential for an epic superbloom.

A superbloom is a rare desert botanical phenomenon in California in which an unusually high proportion of wildflowers whose seeds have lain dormant in desert soil germinate and blossom at roughly the same time. There. Thank you, wikipedia. (Hey, at least I’m not using ChatGPT to generate this entire post! It’s tempting, though.)

So, when the time seemed right, we loaded our red wildebeest, weighed anchor, and tacked downwind to visit a handful of deserts in Southern California. And it did pay off! The only problem is that things went so smoothly that I’m afraid this is going to be a dull post. I mean, yeah, we were once surrounded by a sea of sheep, and we were on three wheels a couple of times, one of them through a section of road that looked so bad that a 4×4 Ford F-150 chose to turn around (I know, it was the driver, not the truck who made the decision). But the thing is, we didn’t get stranded, nothing broke, and we were not chased by sea snakes. Even more extraordinary was that the first lady and I didn’t even quarrel. Sorry about that, folks — I’ll try to do better next time.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

Anza-Borrego is California’s largest state park. It is big, and it feels big. During what was a high-season weekend we found ourselves in complete solitude every night thanks to its vastness, 500 miles of dirt roads, lenient camping regulations, and those wimpy F-150 trucks.

Borrego Springs Sculptures

Anza-Borrego State Park surrounds the little town of Borrego Springs, outside of which you’ll find more than a hundred of these huge sheet metal sculptures of creatures that appear to have reclaimed the desert. They represent the past and present fauna of the Anza-Borrego habitat, with some artistic license to include a dragon, all by the same artist, Ricardo Breceda.

As the story goes, Breceda’s daughter wanted a dinosaur for her birthday, and Breceda, a Mexican-born with no artistic background, grabbed some sheets of metal and made one for her, just like that, while most of us are incapable of even drawing one in two dimensions. Breceda later met an affluent land owner who commissioned all of the sculptures and provided the land to serve as a gigantic outdoor gallery.

Salton Sea

The Salton Sea, a land-locked saline lake that sits below sea level, is the result of an engineering accident. In 1906 silt blocked a canal that diverted water from the Colorado River to irrigate the Imperial Valley. Engineers built a temporary bypass, but it wasn’t too long until it breached. Floodwaters flowed for two years until the breach was stopped, creating a lake about 15 times the size of Manhattan. In the 1950s the area thrived as a vacation destination, but now the lake is drying and exposing a layer of toxic dust from agricultural runoff. It’s hard to shake a post-apocalyptic feeling while going around the lake.

Bombay Beach, on the eastern shore of Salton Lake, flourished as a resort town counting celebrities such as Frank Sinatra as regulars. The exodus due to health concerns and the stench of massive fish die-offs transformed Bombay Beach into a “living ghost town”, but nowadays the town is experiencing a comeback as a quirky hub for artistic expression.

Joshua Tree National Park

There wasn’t a lot of flowers in Joshua Tree, but the park is a jewel always worth visiting. We were rewarded with a rare day of heavy rainfall.

Granite Mountains at Mojave Desert

Ah, the Mojave! It’s a magical place that brings light to the dark corners of your soul. Just come here to spend a couple of nights, get immersed in its healing power, get lost in a granite alley to absorb its wisdom, listen to its subtle silence, feel the place breathe, admire the resilience of its inhabitants, inhale the beauty of its vastness, swallow its dreamlike alchemy… and you’ll come out a different person.

The sweet dessert: Carrizo Plain National Monument

For all your flowery needs, look no further.

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