A Bloom With a View

March 16th, 2019

If you’ve been following any news outlets this month you’ve probably heard all about the Super Bloom. I’m not particularly inclined towards gardening- although I enjoy looking at flowers, I certainly do not have a talent for growing them. However, as soon as I saw the photos depicting massive fields of flowers as colorful as the ones in The Wizard of Oz, I wanted to see them in person. Brian grew up in Southern California and his mom and sister still live there, so unlike many of my other plans this one was actually feasible. We were already planning to head down there for a birthday party surprise for Brian’s sister, so it seemed like kismet to go see the flowers in Anza Borrego State Park in the same trip.

The sun coming up as we drove down the grade into Anza Borrego Desert.

We left home on the central coast at around 4:30 p.m. since we’d both gotten off from work early. The drive is becoming a very familiar one – about a six hour trek through the least exciting portion of California and on into SoCal. We lost a bit of time stopping at In-N-Out as well as a gas station, where we stocked up on Keebler elf cookies they were selling for dirt cheap in a basket by the door. When we finally pulled into his mom’s driveway, it was about 12:30 in the morning. Before we could go to bed, we had some things to check off the to-do list, including helping Brian with repairs around the house and preparing egg and bacon burritos and sandwiches for the next day. We ended up finally hitting the hay around 2:30 or so, setting our alarms for 4:30 AM to head to Anza-Borrego before the crowds and heat. It only felt like minutes later, however, that our alarms were going off and it was time to get back into the car.

The drive was about an hour, and we came across very few other cars on the road. As we descended into the canyon, the sun began to creep over the ridges and pour down into the valley below. The mountains were clean-cut against the pink sky, cactuses posed with arms raised in the open plains between the peaks. In that early morning haze, it looked more like a painted set from a western movie than a real landscape. There were even tumbleweeds, though in the still morning air they were parked on the sides of the road rather than rolling across it. Having lived only on the central coast, these deserts are a thrill to me since we don’t really have anything comparable in my (albeit limited) experience. Brian and I had been to Borrego together only once before, the previous summer, and it had been a very different scene. We’d gone to see a giant iron sea Serpent, one of over one hundred metal statues in Borrego Springs that have been sculpted by Ricardo Breceda. As a kid I was completely enamoured with the idea of dragons so I loved seeing it, but even if you aren’t a fan of such things the scale of it is impressive. The serpent stretches 350 feet from snarling dragon head to rattlesnake tail, and arches fifteen feet off of the ground. The day we’d gone had been as hot as an oven, the mountains flickering behind heat waves so thick that they almost felt like a physical blow when we stepped out of the air conditioned car. It was way too hot to do much more than step out for photos.

Ricardo Breceda’s iron sea serpent statue.

This time the desert is cool and quiet, and flowers bloom across what before had been miles of hot sand. It’s so incredibly silent, in that special empty way a desert can be, with the only interruption a crisp breeze that makes the flowers swing against one another. It’s an incredible space. Anza Borrego is the largest state park in California, and that doesn’t come as a surprise when you’re looking out into it. The vastness is only amplified in the morning when there is nobody else there to crowd the view and in some places it stretches for miles without obstruction. The optical disconnect of seeing the rusted iron menagerie of insects and prehistoric animals speckling the natural horizons only adds another layer to the alien planet feeling of such a bare landscape.

The sun rising over Desert Sand Verbena.

Evening Primrose soaking up the sunrise.

A bee we found crawling through a Desert Sunflower.

We had pulled off the road a short distance into the park, and that first look when we came up to it revealed thousands of flowers, mostly yellow, white, and purple. Blooms of evening primrose, lupines, desert sunflowers, and Desert Sand Verbena shot through an undergrowth of desert star, stretching right up to the foot of the mountain in the background. We had been somewhat prepared for such a beautiful sight from the photos, but weren’t ready for what came with it. Once out of the car, the smell hit us — a floral scent so potent it could’ve been bottled out of the air. Like the heat, it had a presence, hanging thick in the air and our noses. We wandered around, careful not to step on any, watching bees bounce from flower to flower. After, we drove out towards San Felipe Wash, as far as we could get without 4wheel drive. There we found parish poppies by the dozens, growing out of the side of the hills and spreading out from the foot. Even cooler were the ocotillo trees, their many spindly branches flowering with scarlet petals, and the barrel cactuses crowned in yellow blooms. Everything in the desert was blooming and caterpillars were out in force, rampant across the trails and clinging to stems and rocks.

Parish Poppies spreading out from the hills along San Felipe Wash.

The scarlet flowers of an Ocotillo Tree.

A Barrel Cactus looking very regal, or ready for a music festival, in a bright yellow flower crown.

We pretended to sit on them, you know, because we’re dorks.

The most popular part of the SoCal Super Bloom by far was the explosion of California poppies, the little orange bells that endlessly reach for the sun, only blooming when it shines. Sunday morning we began the drive home only to find that the freeway was basically a parking lot as cars attempted to pull onto the shoulder to see the poppies, or just got out right there on the roadway.

Just some of the poppies we saw on our walks.

The poppies were absolutely everywhere, scattered at the foot of the hills and growing thicker as they proceeded, shrouding the slopes like shag carpeting the color of Fanta. We too were not immune to the call, although we weren’t going to cause a traffic block to see them. Instead, we took the nearest exit and found a few out of the way clumps of poppies to see in person. The poppies are so fun and vibrant, and I’m glad we got the chance to see them, just remember not to trample them or others for a photo-op. The traffic once we got back on the road didn’t get better until we were well down I-5, but it was well worth the chance to see such a wonderful embodiment of springtime.

Poppies covering the hills along the 15 freeway.

A quick selfie with the poppies before we hit the road.