Day 3 (Saturday 25 March 2017): Highway 25 We spent our second night on the coast in Morro Bay and came home via Highway 25. I would have enjoyed a drive up the coast, but given the road closures in Big Sur that wasn’t a possibility. Highway 25, however, proved to be a very pretty…
Tag: plants
The hunt resumes
Day 2 (24 March 2017): Tehachapi, Antelope Valley, and Wind Wolves We spent the night in Bakersfield and the next morning (24 March 2017) headed up over Tehachapi Pass and headed into Antelope Valley. It had been many years since I’d driven over Tehachapi Pass, and I didn’t remember ever having seen Joshua trees before….
The hunt continues
Day 1 (Thursday 23 March 2017) cont’d.: Carrizo Plain National Monument The Carrizo Plain is an enclosed grassy plain in the southernmost “toe” of San Luis Obispo County, lying between the Temblor Range to the northeast and the Caliente Range to the southwest. Its average elevation is about 700 meters (2200 feet). The main geological features of…
The hunt begins
RAIN + SUN = WILDFLOWERS That’s one of the truisms of life in a Mediterranean climate such as ours. The official water year as measured by NOAA runs from 1 October through 30 September, and along the central/northern California coast most of the rain falls from December through March. The rest of the year, April through the summer and most…
Wildflower excursion to southern California
Yesterday I joined some friends on an impromptu day trip to southern California to see the spring wildflower bloom. The El Niño rains had brought forth a “superbloom” this year, and while we didn’t have time to go all the way to Death Valley we thought we’d be able to see lots of flowers in…
Aren’t plants supposed be green?
One of my agenda items for spring break this week was to return to Elkhorn Slough and finish the hike that I started with my students a couple of weeks ago. I got out there only to be forcibly reminded that the visitor center, where the hike originates, is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Since I’d…