Spring Flowers

I've really been having fun photographing flowers this spring. They have been about two weeks behind last year, but I figure that's just given me more time to get my bootie in gear and get outside ready to discover them.

In honor of all the spring beauty, I've restarted my A Plant a Day blog, which features plants in this area. Here's a sampling of flowers I have on the blog, but rephotographed this spring because I couldn't resist. If you like plants, be sure to check out the other blog!
The brilliant orange gooseberryleaf globemallow (Sphaeralcea grossularifolia) really lights up the desert floor. This is a plant I have in my native flower garden because I like it so much.

This beautiful tiny daisy is only a few inches tall. It's called spreading fleabane (Erigeron divergens), a rather funny name for such a cute flower.

I just saw this Nevada Onion (Allium nevadense) yesterday. It doesn't grow very tall, but the small balls of flowers are a nice splash of color in the gravelly soils.

I found this bright yellow flower on a rocky outcrop. It's called nakedstem sunray (Enceliopsis nudicaulis) due to the leafless stems.

This beautiful flower that lies close to the ground flowers at night, so you can see it at it's best very early in the morning. It's called tufted-evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa).

This splashy yellow flower with the lobed leaves is lobeleaf groundsel (Packera multilobata), which goes by many other names you can see if you click on the link.

I also saw this beautiful deep blue flower for the first time this year yesterday. The palmately divided leaves look intriguing, and the flowers are amazing. This is Anderson's larkspur (Delphinium andersonii), a member of the Buttercup Family.

I like the flower so much that I couldn't resist a closeup.

And last but not least for today, here's some desert Indian paintbrush (Castilleja angustifolia). It usually grows close to sagebrush, and the bright red bracts really light up the landscape.

Hope you're having fun looking at wild flowers where you live!

Adventure Walk in the Gorge

We started an adventure walk the other day with a beautiful sight--a flock of ibis flying overhead. These slightly-funny looking birds looked so graceful flying in a flock, all turning and swooping at the same moment.

They flew over our destination, a gorge just a few miles from our house. There are wonderful little canyons (or ravines, depending on your perspective) and badland-like formations. I had never really explored the gully, and it seemed like it would be a great time to do it while we had our adventurous company visiting.

We started off going down a steep path to get down into the gully. Then we found a way across the creek and started hiking with the steep, sandy walls rising above us.

Maria enjoyed the obstacles in the narrow ravines and got a little help now and then to surpass them.

She did the tunnel all by herself, though, in both directions. Sometimes it's really good to be small.

We enjoyed looking at a layer of sea shells in the ravine walls, indicating wetter times.

We also got a nature experience when we noticed Henry chasing tiny baby rabbits. Although he scared them, he fortunately didn't cause long-lasting damage. They were really cute and found places to hide from him relatively fast. The ravine was full of little burrows and hiding spots. It would be interesting to go at night and see what else was there.

My sister-in-law Sarah looking for more wildlife. I love her pose! She was truly awesome on this hike, squeezing through the tight side canyons, climbing up and over the stream, carrying Maria at times, and all this while she's seven months pregnant!

Maria was having a blast, and she even ventured fairly far from her parents to go see what else was in the canyon.

I missed seeing an owl fly from this hole, but the white droppings extending below it show that it's active.

After a while, my brother decided to climb out of the ravine, and he found a fun bone yard.

Desert Boy and Maria had fun checking out more "dinosaur" bones.

Some of them were heavy. They must have been big dinosaurs.

We found another fun-looking ravine to descend into the main gorge. It was tremendous fun going up and down, and the erosion patterns on the walls were fascinating. There were several small soil-pipe caves, where the water had eroded crawling-size holes through the softer sediments.

Once we got down into the main gorge and headed back to the van, we found that the bushes were too dense. So we found another ravine to head back up. Then we went across and found another place to go down, cross the side ravine, and then another gully to head back up. It was even more exciting than what "the map*" had told us.

*"The map" refers to Dora the Explorer, which has played a big role in many of our adventure hikes. This time we got out "the map" when we reached the dinosaur bones. It told us we had to go through the bushes, down a deep, dark gully, and then up a sandy hill to get to the van. What do you know, the map was right again!

My brother and Maria against a gorgeous background. We had such a good time and were never far from where we parked. This will definitely be a place to go back to for more adventures.

We made it back safely. Hurray, we did it! Lo hicimos! (Sorry, that's more Dora-speak. I've been indoctrinated.) And for a fitting end, we concluded the adventure walk with a snack. After all, we needed some energy for our next adventure, which was just around the corner (literally).

Winter--or is it spring--wonderland

We woke yesterday morning to gorgeous winter scenery. We were happy for the moisture, but the cold temperatures weren't so appreciated, especially because it was April.

The plants have started greening up, although it was a bit hard to tell under all the snow. The forecast was for warming temperatures throughout the day, so I figured the snow wouldn't last for long.

And I was right. On the way back from town, most of the desert snow had melted off.

I was amazed to see so much water in Sevier Lake. Usually this is a dry lakebed, with only the appearance of water from desert mirages under the broiling heat of the sun. I nearly got stuck trying to get this photo, as the sides of the road were very mushy from all the snowmelt. Oops. Fortunately I got back on the pavement after doing a little spinning.

Storm clouds started building on the way home, and we even got another squall with more snow. Fortunately it's supposed to be nice weather for Easter weekend.

Now that I've give you the weather report, are you ready for the traffic report?

Here it is: No delays expected.

Scenes from the Desert

Here are some photos from a trip we took this weekend. It was nice to get out into the desert and travel those back roads.

This old bus depicts what it really means to 'take a wrong turn.'

It was off the side of this twisty mountain road.

My first flowering native plant of 2010--a lomatium, in the Carrot/Parsley family.

The snow on the far off mountains make them seem so much taller and rugged.

Here's a look into the south end of Dugway Proving Ground.

The cracked earth shows how dry it is. This is the terrain that Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, traveled in 1861 on the Overland Stage to get to Reno, Nevada, where he worked for a newspaper. In the book Roughing It, he wrote of his adventure. Apparently he didn't like the backroads as much as I do (although I admittedly had the convenience of modern transportation and March temperatures). This is the description he uses for this part of the trip:

And now we entered upon one of that species of deserts whose concentrated hideousness shames the diffused and diluted horrors of Sahara—an “alkali” desert. For sixty-eight miles there was but one break in it. I do not remember that this was really a break…there was a stage station there.

We plowed and dragged and groped along, the whole livelong night, and at the end of this uncomfortable twelve hours we finished the forty-five-mile part of the desert and got to the stage station where the imported water was. The sun was just rising. It was easy enough to cross a desert in the night while we were asleep; and it was pleasant to reflect, in the morning, that we in actual person had encountered an absolute desert and could always speak knowingly of deserts in presence of the ignorant thenceforward…All this was very well and very comfortable and satisfactory—but now we were to cross a desert in daylight. This was fine—novel—romantic—dramatically adventurous—this, indeed was worth living for, worth traveling for! We would write home all about it.

This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure, wilted under the sultry August sun and did not last above one hour. One poor little hour—and then we were ashamed that we had “gushed” so. The poetry was all in the anticipation—there is none in the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean stricken dead and turned to ashes; imagine this solemn waste tufted with ash-dusted sage bushes; imagine the lifeless silence and solitude that belong to such a place; imagine a coach, creeping like a bug through the midst of this shoreless level, and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a bug that went by steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling and plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore still as far away as ever, apparently; imagine team, driver, coach, and passengers so deeply coated with ashes that they are all one colorless color; imagine ash drifts roosting above mustaches and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes. This is the reality of it.

The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless malignity; the perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface—it is absorbed before it gets there; there is not the faintest breath of air stirring; there is not a merciful shred of cloud in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature visible in any direction whither one searches the blank level that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a sound—not a sigh—not a whisper—not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of bird—not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless people that dead air…

…At last we kept it up ten hours, which, I take it, is a day, and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was from four in the morning til two in the afternoon. And it was so hot! And so close! And our water canteens went dry in the middle of the day and we got so thirsty! It was so stupid and tiresome and dull!...and truly and seriously the romance all faded far away and disappeared, and left the desert trip nothing but a harsh reality…

Secret Desert Canyon

My parents have been here visiting the last week, and I always like to take them different places so they can get the flavor of the high desert. One of our adventures was to go to a secret desert canyon. Although it's March, it's still chilly, and we had to start off by putting on winter coats.

This is the start of the canyon. It has beautiful rocks, and if you know where to look, you can spot...
...petroglyphs! These old rock carvings are a bit worn and not the easiest to see, but still it's really neat imagining the people who made them. Did they ever come in March? And if they did, what did they wear to stay warm?

Further on, Desert Boy enjoyed scampering up the rocks. He loves to climb, so we had to rein him in a bit or he would have been to the top with us trying to catch up.

Eventually we got to the end of the canyon section. Above that is a wash that curves and bends and eventually reaches a mountain range. I went ahead and was able to get a wider view. Then Desert Boy and Grandpa decided to join me.

Most of the snow had melted at this elevation, but there were still patches on north-facing slopes.
Grandpa was most impressed with how desolate this section of desert looked. At this time of year it sure looks like desert, with so many earth tones in all the rocks and vegetation.
We sat down to get a new profile pic for my blog. My favorite ended up being the unposed one (above).
But the posed one does show off the desert scenery behind us.
On the way back down the canyon, we found a little pocket with icicles. Desert Boy was intrigued.
He touched one and found out it was cold. Then he tried licking one.

Desert Boy and Grandpa continued down the canyon, enjoying the adventure.
We even found a little tunnel for Desert Boy to climb through. He liked it so much he did it twice. We made a number of analogies to Dora the Explorer since that's one of his favorite shows. Sometimes it makes the hiking much easier!
Grandpa and Grandma near the end of the hike are all smiles. Because "we did it, we did it!"
We took advantage of the scenic location for a photo op.
And then it was time to drive back out to the paved road. Grandpa was quite curious why there was a Stop sign right next to the gate. We stopped at both. Then it was time for a rest before we began the next adventure.

Hopefully we can find more fun canyons to explore on future visits.