Superbloom 2017 In The Anza-Borrego State Park

I've been itching for a little adventure, and also highly aware that a rare "Superbloom" of wildflowers is going down in the California desert, so I talked my brother into (begged) heading out there for a road trip - Destination: Beauty.

The area getting the most Superbloom buzz by far this Spring is the Anza-Borrego State Park, about three hours away in the Southern California desert, Northeast of San Diego. The rains we finally got this year have caused the desert blooms to explode out all over the place in a riotous celebration of rebirth. Spring has sprung!

We didn't get that early of a start from Venice (Paul.), so we had a strict pedal to the metal policy of no stopping until we reached the blooms. This was actually kind of hard, because the entire drive was gorgeous, once we left the main highways. It's SO important to me to get deep out into nature pretty regularly. I need to remember that there are wide open spaces and so much natural beauty remains, and we're so, so lucky to have it. Each time I have an outdoor adventure, it renews in me a fierce responsibility to cherish our Earth, and protect it. When I even think of politicians wanting to cut the EPA, and ignore climate change, and build and drill in our National Parks ... I just freak out. All it takes is one visit to any of these wondrous natural destinations, and you just can't believe we're even having that conversation. So, again, these nature road trips are beyond crucial - especially now.

My brother, Paul, is a wonderful photographer, so he of course wanted to stop at every mountain road turn-out to capture each vista. I kind of had to crack the whip. We had a plan to return and get some of them on the way back, and then we took a different route out, so you'll have to trust me that there were some awesome cows, trees, cacti, and ramshackle barns along the way.

Anza-Borrego is deep in Native American reservation territory, and it was cool to travel through and see all these places with such long histories and tribal traditions, surrounded by such vast expanses of stunning beauty. I repeated the truism at one point that the journey WAS the destination, because this drive was so very lovely the entire way out there. Alice In Wonderland and Dr. Seuss references were also made the entire way, as the landscapes were so colorful and surreal, it felt fictional.

The photographer was on a race with natural light, so we kept speeding along. And never ate. The scenery was so beautiful, we sustained ourselves on a visual diet, actively ignoring the stomach grumblings. I'd heard the traffic and crowds had been awful down there for the Superblooom, but we didn't find that to be the case. One highway adjacent area was pretty riddled with tourists, but that was about it. We skipped the main Park parking lot, carrying on through and out of the little town of Borrego Springs, as per the Wildflower hotline (#760-767-4684). Winding along the mountain passes, commenting on the funny names (Peg Leg Road), we finally came around a curve and BEHOLD! An entire valley full of an absolute Superbloom!

Beauty as far as the eye could see - and then some. One part of the valley was entirely orange, in a floral carpet out of The Wizard Of Oz. The Wonderland of Alice was felt especially here, as while we were hiking out into the massive field of flowers, we looked down to see that every plant had enormous caterpillars squirming around them. They looked like squash blossoms, until you got close up and saw that the thing was moving. It was verrrrry trippy.

"What's to stop a mug from just scattering wildflower seeds everywhere?", asked Paul, echoing exactly my thoughts. This massive display of flowers just naturally occurring inspires those kind of guerilla seed scattering ideas. It can't be helped.

We were still starving, but the sun was starting to dip behind one of the mountain ranges, so we forged on. We hiked around, we read those handy State Park information things. We learned about our place exactly right then in the Universe. We are small.

Another perk of an adventure day like this is it does exactly that, shows you your place in this World, and demands that you be in the moment of right then. You even get a reminder that HERE YOU ARE sometimes, which is helpful.

The wind was picking up and the temperature was falling, but then the light got even better, so ahead we forged. You truly could turn in a 360, and every view your gaze fell upon would be prettier than the next. Paul tends to take a long time to edit and post his recreational photos, but believe me, you have something to look forward to.

The sunset was a tough competitor to the wildflowers, but as a Superbloom is more rare, I'm gonna give it to the flowers this time. This is starry country, so the view continued to excel even as the darkness began to take over.

We made a deal that once the sun set, and we had no more light to waste on being indoors, we would stop at the first place we came to on the mountain road out of the Park that wasn't a chain (I don't do chains on road trips). If it had the word "Roadhouse" in its name - even better. We rounded a curve just after the sun was all the way down, and saw the sign for the County Line Wood Fire Grill. Exactly, precisely what we had in mind. We parked, got out, saw there was a picnic table open outside in full view of the waning sunset, and immediately took a load off. We could smell the wood fire from the grill, and though they were short-staffed and swamped with flower-lookers, everything we had was truly delicious. The staff was great. The view was charming. They're adding a big deck and live music this Summer, and suddenly I find myself wondering aloud when we'll be back in Warner Springs, California. Superbloom or not.

What a sorely needed, wonderful day! I laughed my head off, I marveled at the wonder and persistence of nature, and I felt at my most alive as I breathed in all of that color and aroma. Not just alive, but super, extra grateful that all of this still exists, and that I was there to see it. Road trips are what's up, and I hope you'll get yourself one soon enough that leaves you smiling as you re-live your own memories. If you want it to be Superbloom memories, you need to act fast ... the Sun only lets it last so long.

Thank you, Superbloom 2017! I needed that.

Rebirth In Death Valley!

Sometimes you just have to get away from it all, and in California, about the most extreme place you can do that is in Death Valley National Park. I've been wanting to check that place out ever since I moved here, and when I read that there might be a wildflower "Super Bloom" this Spring, plans were finally made. Well, they weren't really made at all ... we just got in the car and went for the weekend.

The drive is pretty fast, about four hours from L.A. It gets increasingly hot as you go, and scrubbier and drier. We started to see some wildflowers along the sides of the road, and I started to get that excitement you get when you're almost at a place you've never seen before.

Death Valley is far more dramatic than I'd pictured, and a lot more mountainous. The Valley itself is in between mountain ranges that trap the heat in there, making it the hottest place on Earth at times (the high temperature ever recorded was 134, and they're very proud of that). It's gnarly. 

We arrived in the HUGE park in the early afternoon, and immediately set out to see as much as we could. There were surreal landscapes in every direction, but as we had only two days, we opted to look for flowers first, and the park's greatest hits second. 

There is a wildflower hotline that had said the day before that it was blankets of blooms like the person had never seen. The thing with Death Valley though is that it's so hot that everything changes every day. The superbloom of the day before had already shriveled up from the heat in one day. We saw exactly one hot pink cactus flower bush in the entire park.

With everything so spread out (like hours and miles between some landmarks), you have to use your time wisely. The information center lady told us what the coolest things were and where we were most likely to see flowers, and that's where we went. The rocks and mountains are multi-hued, as different minerals make up the landscape. You'll see red, green, pink, yellow in the stone, and one scenic drive is even called the Artist's Palette, as it resembles exactly that in the right sunlight.

It's harsh conditions in Death Valley. Very rough terrain and the ridiculous heat make it an excursion for at least the somewhat hardcore. I'd like to think that's me, but even I was reduced to tears at the end of the day, so bad was my head pounding from total heat exhaustion. 

The heat is seriously heavy metal, and not to be taken lightly at all. All the streets and sights are named for things related to Hell, and that's pretty apt. But an awfully beautiful hell.

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the U.S. It is probably also the hottest. This is where I started to wilt. It's a giant salt basin, and you can feel your lips and skin chapping as you stand there. In the photo below, Paul was being honest, I was faking it.

When you turn around and look up, you can see "Sea Level" painted hundreds of feet above you. You're now under the sea, in a total Land Of The Lost environment. The fact that ANYTHING can live there is a serious miracle.

But things do. Little lizards, mountain goats, caterpillars, scorpions, snakes, spiders, hawks ... and those elusive flowers we were looking for.

A true highlight of the trip was running around in the sand dunes. They're real, rolling sand dunes, and someone told me some of Star Wars was shot there. 

I believe it, because Sand People are about the only people that it would make sense to be there. We watched sunset and moonrise there, and it was out of this world. Purple mountain's majesty in full effect.

We stopped in the village of Stovepipe Wells to get supplies and ask about lodging. As a slew of bikers (both spandex and Harley) came through for the weekend, there were absolutely no rooms at the inn. Anywhere. 

We ate an exhausted and marginal meal at the town bar, and geared up to drive another two hours back out of the park to find a bed to sleep (and recover) in. I thought I'd ask one more time before we left, and sure enough, someone was a no-show, and the nicest, cleanest, most welcomed bed was mine at the Furnace Creek Ranch, right there in the heart of the Valley. Praise Jah.

After being a dusty, sweaty mess for the entire day, the pool was about the happiest place on Earth. Floating on my back in water that was the same temperature as the air, looking up at the billions of low hanging stars and bright moon, it was like being suspended in the womb of the Universe. It was an out of body and deeply within my body sensation all at once. I was saying all weekend that the theme of the weekend was rebirth - I'd meant that mentally, but in this pool, it also felt physical. Spring is the rebirth of the planet too, but where most places it's rebirth from the dead of Winter. Here, it's life before the death of Summer, when the sun burns everything to a crisp. Trippy. Plus it's Easter time. Rebirth, Life, Death ... Timely.

We set the alarm to get up at 3:30 am to see the stars after the moon had set. The only place I've ever seen the stars better was at the top of Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. After a brief panic attack thinking our car would get stuck on this old mining road and I'd die in my pajamas and flip flops (dumb idea), I laid back on the hood of the car and watched the stars dance and shoot across the sky. It was magic ... until fatigue and the thought of another full day of heat in a few hours sent us back to our cool beds.

Back up and at 'em, we set out to look for flowers where they'd allegedly been spotted in the south end of the park. Another long and lovely drive brought us to a mountain pass that  had a field of yellow flowers reaching to the peaks, but we could almost see them slowly dying right in front of us. The rare bright spot of color and life is even more pretty than normal here, because the stark contrast against the brown and lifeless terrain. This was about the happiest yellow ever.

The whole place was founded on mining, which kind of wrecks it a bit for me, because it's an obvious sign of mankind messing with nature. People only ever came here for the mining, and then they needed more people to come once the mining dried up, so their inns and things could still be of use. 

They made it a National Park to get people to go to this outrageous place, and they've been coming ever since. You see people running - actually running - and wonder what the hell is wrong with them. It's insane.

A weird thing is that all the salt everywhere makes it look like snow and ice, so you're the hottest you've ever been, yet it looks like it could be tundra. Very bizarre.

We climbed another mountain to see another view, and this time, we made sure to be absolutely waterlogged to try and avoid the previous day's pounding, debilitating headache. I did much better.

This park is much less populated than other National Parks, so you can get the photos without other people in them. There's also a bit of a camaraderie among visitors, as you're all in the same boat, wearing the same spent smiles, and encouraging each other that they're almost at the pool at the top of the hike (lie).

Paul had a show at the Troubadour that night, so we had to hustle to see as much as we could, so we raced through our Sunday at Death Valley like greased lightning, but even with that deadline looming, Paul still had to get the shots (and still made it in time!).

There was a hike called Mosaic Canyon that was one of those really narrow slot canyons like in the movie where the dude had to saw his arm off to get free of a boulder. We didn't stay too long there. To be that hot AND stuck ... naw, thanks.

We didn't see quite the superbloom that I'd imagined, but we saw LIFE in Death Valley. We saw rebirth, and experienced a little bit of our own. It's always good to get away, and it's always good to unplug. I had no way of connecting with the outside world for two days (well, I could've, but chose not to) and it was great. To only think about what is right in front of you is one of the best trips you can take, and Death Valley will do that for you.

Existing under those conditions - even for just a weekend - makes you sincerely appreciate all the beachy breezes, abundant life everywhere you look, and the sheer convenience of everything in your life. That is one of the true joys of travel and exploration ... loving where you are when you return.

Thanks to Death Valley for reinforcing that lesson, and thanks to Venice for being that happy place to come home to.