Movies, Horses, Desert, Outhouse

Kathleen and Phillip have this neat Epson projector that does a wonderful job of filling the opposite wall with whatever image is on the computer.  It's a great way to watch movies which we've been doing, [popcorn night, but that's another story].  The happy snap below gives you an idea of the set up without the couch being turned around.  Joan, [couch potato ?  ... not!] is just sampling the Blue Planet series from the BBC.

Thursday was going to be a rainy day in Sad Diego, what better time to go to the desert where it never rains? It's about a two hour drive away, after the requisite coffee and pie at the Pie Factory store in Julian, which we missed last year, but that too is another story.

The Anza-Borrego State Park is huge, about sixty by thirty miles!  After the entrance sign on the state road, you still have miles to go before any state development.  The mountains are quite spectacular and maintaining a 20 mph speed is a challenge at times.

I pulled off the pavement and made the next three photos on the hillside by the road.  There are lots of barrel cacti seeking out a living in the slightest amount of dirt.  Quite spectacular, and it goes on for miles.

This next image is of an Ocotillo plant.  When thing are really dry, it loses all its leaves and looks positively dry and dead!  Give it a little rain and it either flowers or grows green leaves all along its spiny stalk.  The plants grow up to well over 15 feet high!  They are almost everywhere in the nearby dry areas.

New for this year were these fantastic horse sculptures basically in the middle of nowhere but near the town of Borrego Springs.  They are made up of pieces of tin spot welded together.  From a small distance, they were simply spectacular!

Here are a few different ones with Joan included in the last one to give you and idea of  scale.

This next plant also give an idea of tough life in the desert.  This bush is about six feet high and basically bare except for these emerging new green leaves, due to recent rain.

 

The next picture is of a smoke bush, also a desert survivor.  Note the threatening clouds.

We walked for about two hours along Palm Canyon, the park's most popular trail.  The canyon cliffs were quite steep and made up of beautiful rock formations. 

We walked along a dry wash subject to flash flood when it rains hard.  The flooding moves dead palm trunks and stones / boulders of all sizes.  Some were much bigger than you can imagine.  Joan gives you an idea of scale...

The purpose of walking this trail is to visit an oasis deep in the canyon.  We were pressed for time and only got far enough to see this sample of palms and this canyon branch entrance. 

Part of the considerations while walking this trail is that the sun sets behind the mountains and it starts getting pretty dark in the canyon by 4 pm at this time of year. I can't imagine returning to the parking lot in the dark, the trail would have been just too rocky and indistinct to follow.

I guess by now you've forgotten the reference to the outhouse in the title of this blog.  Shame!  This little powder room bring a whole new meaning to outhouse!  There are no doors and there's no roof.  Also, there's no 'Mens' so I had to sneak into the 'Ladies' to make this shot.  Cute outhouse or what?

The skies did sprinkle a bit on us, but the area is so dry that we barely got moist.