At The Backroads

California Poppies, Spring 2008 Bloom, Rattlesnake Canyon

One of the simple joys in hiking is experiencing Mother Nature’s wonderful treat during spring, which is the magnificent wildflower bloom. This year 2008 was probably the best spring I had in San Diego since I moved here August 2004. Though 2005 was really a great bloom, but I missed it. I only have that page in a travel magazine given to me by my co-teacher about the wonderful bloom in Anza Borrego 2005. I just did not know where I was during the peak of the bloom. What I knew, I was enjoying the bloom at Torrey Pines that year,

Torrey Pines Spring 2005

and in La Jolla and Balboa Park. Probably, the only three places in San Diego that I knew that year. Or maybe, I was still ignorant of the other scenic places around San Diego. Maybe, I was still not very appreciative of the kind of nature’s surprises around. All I thought before, San Diego was only beach, beach, beach and yes, beach! Don’t get me wrong, I love the ocean, I love beach, but of course, I also love diversity. As time passed by, I got to know the mountains (Palomar Mountain and Mount Laguna) in San Diego, and later, got acquainted with the desert, and actually became an avid fan of the desert! Not really to live there, but a grand place of silence, a grand place of nothingness for meditation. I am probably one of the few who finds so much beauty in brown, in twisted landscapes, in corrugated badlands, of surprising plant life in the middle of nowhere, of unusual looking plants, maybe it was because a sight I did not see before. And when my co-teacher gave me that page from a tavel magazine about the wonderful bloom in Anza Borrego Desert, I had been wishing to see how the desert would be transformed into a place almost like heaven. But before I experience the bloom in Anza Borrego Desert this year 2008, I was gifted by nature with wonderful bloom nearby. Maybe, I may had not known these wildflower lined trail had I not been hiking. Hiking in the foothills and valley that litters in San Diego County, I found slopes which unusually explodes with orange. And here are some of my local finds:

@ Rattlesnake Canyon

@Rattlesnake Canyon / Tooth Rock Mountain

@Del Dios close to Lake Hodges (1)

@Del Dios close to Lake Hodges (2)

@Del Dios close to Lake Hodges (3)

@Lake Poway

@Torrey Pines (1)

@Torrey Pines (2)

@Torrey Pines (3)

And from Anza Borrego Desert State Park, still in San Diego County, but is not that very close to home anymore,

@Anza Borrego(1)

@Anza Borrego(2)

And the farthest we went to chase a wildflower lined trail, at Amboy Crater, which is already outside of San Diego County, but still in Southern California.

@Amboy Crater, San Bernardino County(1)

@Amboy Crater, San Bernardino County(2)

@Amboy Crater, San Bernardino County(3)

What is more amazing for me, is that, the last five pictures are in the desert! A lot of times, hiking opens up to us a beauty to take in, and a beauty to reflect, like in these wildflower lined trails. It also opens to us the realization, that in our beautiful world, Mother Nature gives, but she also needs us to take care of herself.