Shawna’s Whimsical Weblog

Dorothy and EK keep out the sogginess

It was another day of outdoor adventure for my brother, Dorothy, EK, Brian, Wendy, Wendy’s friend Sarah, and I. The Natural History Museum’s Canyoneer program was leading a hike to the largest Vernal Pool in Southern California at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. I have gone searching for vernal pools twice this year in San Diego, but have had no luck. However, the 8 1/2 inches that the Plateau received was able to fill the pool nicely. We actually were lucky to have a group of 3 gregarious canyoneers along on our trip. They were VERY informative and really enhanced the hiking experience. We were too early for the fairy shrimp, but maybe they’ll still be around when I hope to go back in a month or so.

The April Fool’s Day joke was on us even though we brought out our rain gear to battle the morning sprinkles. As we slogged down the trail, the soles of our shoes gaining larger stacks of mud, we commented on how very different this was than being in the desert the weekend prior.

The preserve was a quick escape into nature, even though the track homes of Murrieta lay just 5 miles to the East of us. We were able to spot a handful of wildflowers, including the Chocolate Lily! My white tennis shoes will never be the same, but a fun trip regardless.
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Jeannine, Brian and Angela in Coyote Creek

Even after a year of slim rainfall, our group of adventurers couldn’t be stopped from heading out for the annual trek to Anza Borrego State Park in search of spring flowers. On Saturday we headed up to the northwest portion of the park called Coyote Canyon. After meeting up at the visitor center to see a rare yellow ocotillo and yellow chuparosa, we stopped at the ocotillo-phyllic Desert Gardens. We had three trusty drivers -Angela, EK and Brian Scott. Coyote Creek was fabled to have a year round creek, which I could hardly believe with only 2 inches or rainfall hitting the park this year. Continuing on down the graded desert road, Brian and Wendy Scott (plus their dogs Pharoah and Spike) would need to abandon their Civic at the first river crossing and pile into the other 4WD cars. Sure enough there was flowing creek at the second crossing and we continued on the road until we found a spot where a number of other desert lovers had parked their vehicles.

Packing up lunch we headed up the creek in search of the Lower Willows Trail. Through some luck (it takes a village), we were able to find the trail head which was further west of the creek than we had originally anticipated. Everyone brought out their cameras to snap pictures of the flowers growing near the water. The trail itself was pretty level and went through a variety of habitats. All-in-all a very enjoyable 4 mile trek. Tim equally enjoyed time with his computer in the car accompanied by a bag of cookies.

We then headed off to very posh (flush toilets) Palm Canyon Campground where we had reserved two sites. Even though the campground was full, we were still able to get sites back to back to each other which worked out very well. Soon it was on to a large appetizer course (cheeses, veggies, salami, baguette, crackers, you name it!) I could certainly get used to the gourmet car camping experience. I barely had room for the delicious chicken sausages and smores that followed.

After a windy night of sleep we decided to head off to another part of the park we had never explored before -Glorietta Canyon. We did come across a number of flowers that we had not encountered on the previous day. Certainly the quantity of flowers was not as awe-aspiring as 2005, but it was still an enjoyable morning hike to a lookout over Borrego Valley out to the Salton Sea.

We decided to stop in Julian next for some apple pie. Unfortunately this was when my nausea decided to kick back in and I wasn’t feeling all that great for the rest of the day. But I was happy to have it delayed that long. I keep hoping that the nausea will disappear all together, but this week marked yet another week where I was nauseous most every day :(.

To see the rest of my pictures from the trip, check here.