Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Spring Flowers

While the Northeast has been dealing with a spring blizzard, we have been enjoying the sudden arrival of summer-like weather.

Southern California is blooming!  The hill sides along the roads are covered with dense patches of wildflowers.

On Tuesday we drove our Jeep over to Borrego Springs to see the desert bloom.  We had heard that over the weekend there had been bumper to bumper traffic around the small town. We were happy we had the luxury of visiting on a weekday. There was some traffic, but it was not bothersome. Everyone seemed to be mellowed by the beauty of the blooming fields of wildflowers.



I guess we have gotten out of practice for taking pictures. As far as I could tell, all my pictures of the field were out of focus.

There were many kinds of flowers blooming.



These were scattered in among the yellow.

Speaking of flowers, the hillsides around Jojoba Hills are lush with blooms as well.



The flowers are wild flowers, but I think they were seeded.



This is a close-up of the hill in the previous image. Wonderful!

It's hard to believe we have been here for almost five months. I have started to write posts from time to time, but they just never get finished. In general we like Jojoba Hills, and are comfortable with our decision to "buy in" here for a winter home base. My only disappointment has been in the weather. January and February were much colder than I expected. We were glad for the rain, but it spoils my almost daily attendance at the pool.

My summer plans for our trip to Alaska are coming together. We will leave here on or about April 18. We want to  spend May in Oregon and Washington. My first reservation is in the Vancouver BC area for the Memorial Day weekend. My next reservation is in Valdez, AK for the 4th of July, and then at Denali National Park in mid-August. We plan to travel "with the wind" and make reservations a few days ahead, but only if it seems necessary. Although not enthusiastic about boondocking, we are comfortable dry camping for a few days at a time. It looks like there are a limited number of full-hook-up parks in Alaska, but plenty of no-hook-up accommodations. 

I hope to start more regular blogging once we are on our way. This is a travel blog after all!  And travel we will.

13 comments:

  1. Check out our Alaska posts...glad to hear from you and thanks for posting on FB! Glad to see you again...beautiful flower photos...safe travels from Jeannie and Eldy

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  2. hummm tried to post but it got gobbled. I am so happy to see you are having a good time and look forward to hearing about your trip to Alaska.

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  3. Glad to hear from you again. The flowers are beautiful. I think you'll find that this past winter was unusually cold and wet, and future winters will be nicer. Looking forward to hearing about your Alaska adventure!

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  4. Good to hear from you. We will treasure our trip to Alaska forever, it was amazing. We didn't have reservations most of the time and it worked out just fine. Although ti has been a few years (2011) and things may have shifted a bit with all the rigs now on the road. Glad to see you are settled in and enjoying Jojoba. This winter was a nasty one everywhere. And...say hi to Judy...who seems to have gone completely incognito! Sent her a few emails and haven't heard back. Hope she is well too!

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  5. Those are beautiful wildflowers, great photos.

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  6. Nice to see your blog pop up on our sidebar once again. We've been wondering how you guys were doing. We did drive by your place (and Judys) early one morning last month on our way to Temecula. Not wanting to disturb anyone we gave y'all a big wave and tippy-toed back out of the Park. I think Jojoba Hills is one of the best landscaped and well maintained Parks we have ever seen.

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    1. I wish you had banged on our door and woke us up. Next time do so and we will make coffee in our PJs!
      I assume you stayed over down in Boondocks

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  7. Good to you blogging again!

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  8. Nice to hear from you again, looks like we left Borrego too soon, the flowers were just beginning, awesome pictures.

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  9. We're so happy to finally be rid of the rain. The weather has been glorious here on the central coast. Loving the wildflowers too!

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  10. Look at those gorgeous flowers. This has been one of our coldest and wettest winters since we've been coming down here but the warmth has arrived. Sure good to hear from you and I totally understand why you don't blog when you're not traveling. Please tell Judy we'd love to hear from her even if it's just saying hi.

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  11. Hi Merikay, the flowers are beautiful. There are wildflowers sprinkled on the lawns here in South Texas, I have picked a few from some vacant lots.

    I'm looking forward to your posts on Alaska, as it is on my list of places to visit.

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  12. It's about time you got back in the game. Missed you!

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