Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Anza-Borrego, Take 2

After going out to see the wildflowers and realizing we hadn't hit the peak bloom yet -- and that more rain was in the forecast for the following week -- I mentioned to Darrick that an optimal time to see them would probably be in two weeks' time. He liked the idea, and flew down for the weekend of March 20.

This time, the bloom was a bit more pronounced. We also drove back out into the canyon as far as I could get without getting my car stuck like a beached whale. We ended up playing a game of "let's see how far this other car goes" with a rental Hyundai Accent. We both gave up at the same point when we realized there was no going beyond the ditch and stream we would've needed to cross to continue. We ended up talking to the guys from the rental car, who were from Maine and admitted to following us to see how far we could get, thinking that maybe we knew what we were doing since I had California plates. Wrong.

After purchasing lemonade and Avocados on the way out of the dirt road adventure, we decided to proceed on to Salton City to see how much had changed in the last few years. Last time we were there was near the height of the housing boom, and lots of homes were under construction in a ghost city that clearly shouldn't have any homes being built there. Our return found many of those homes to be abandoned in various stages of (in)completion. Depressing.

From Salton City, I decided it'd be fun to take I-8 back to San Diego instead of going the way we came. This ended up adding about an hour to our trip, as we had to drive all the way down and out to El Centro to hit the freeway. We stopped at a Carl's Jr. in Brawley for a snack, and the cashier gave me the Senior discount for some reason. Darrick wasn't as lucky.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere off of I-8 near Jacumba (specifically, right here if we're getting technical) we stopped on our way home to take some pictures of the night sky. Darrick had the good lens setup for this, and he has those pictures. As of this writing, he has not shared them yet. Just as we were leaving, we were "stopped" and interrogated by a Border Patrol officer who wanted to know what the heck we were doing out in the middle of nowhere so late at night, and so close to the border. Our "night sky pictures" excuse seemed to satisfy him, and we were on our way.

A photo album containing all the pictures I took on the trip is here.

Anza-Borrego, Take 1

On March 6, I headed out to Anza-Borrego with Julie to see the desert wildflowers. Chris wasn't able to come, so it was just us. Turns out the weather hadn't been quite warm enough yet, and as such the wildflowers had not yet hit peak bloom.

We might've stopped at Dudley's for fresh bread, Julian Pie Co. for fresh pie, and the egg ranch for fresh eggs, since we just happened to be passing by. Convenient, no?

Pictures of wildflowers are here.

Ohio Trip Feb. 2010

Photos from the family trip to Ohio for Grandma's funeral in February are here. In case you can't tell by looking at them, it was cold there. I think the high temperature for the whole trip was about 26 degrees. Mom, Nicole, and I all flew from different places and met up in Indianapolis and then drove the rest of the way from there, and Dad flew out earlier in the week.

San Diego Zoo

Some photos from a trip to the San Diego Zoo back on January 24 are posted here. Enjoy.