California, Part III

With my flight leaving in the early afternoon, and a rental car sitting on the pad outside my hotel room, I couldn't resist the opportunity for an early morning hike.

I parked just as the sun was rising:

I walked up the Art Smith trail.  In Oregon, lots of trails are named after animals and geographic features, occasionally after pioneers or early mountain people.  I guess they name trails after actors down in California.

This neighborhood is named "Bighorn".  There are, in fact, bighorn sheep in these mountains.  Part of the hills right next to the Art Smith trailhead is closed because this is the sheeps' normal wintering habitat.  They're notoriously people-shy, and the stress of people invading their low-altitude hangout would stunt the local herd.

This photo would have been so much better had I only aimed the camera lower and to the left.  Why don't I see these things until after the fact?

The water situation in the Palm Springs area is pretty interesting.  I don't know a whole lot of the details. Seems that a good bit of their water comes from the Indian reservations on the flanks of the mountains here, and that there's not a whole lot of water to start off with (obvious).  You'd never realize that walking around town, though.  Green grass and big palm trees everywhere.  For more information, read Cadillac Desert, which is a water history of the American West.  It's a heck of a lot more interesting than it sounds!  Here's a water storage tank up the hill from the neighborhood.

Another gratuitous photo of the moonset and the light of the sunrise.  Click to enlarge and see the "real" color.

Here I am, standing next to something I've never seen in person before- a barrel cactus.  Finally, in real life.  I can now die a happy man.

Up into the hills, I came across another Palm grove, like I'd seen at Indian Canyon.  This one wasn't quite as impressively large.  And there was no flowing water to be found anywhere.  But the shade would have been a relief during the midday.

This plant is called ocotillo.  Believe it or not, this individual is about as "blooming" as it will ever get.  They look like dry spikes most of the year, but green leaves come out after enough rain.  

This is familiar to me- lupine.  I bet this is a different variety, but it's still recognizable.  

This is. . . well. . . the internet is a vast, mazelike place with long load times and pages of un-useful data to wade through.  I have no clue what this is.  

Hope you enjoyed reading about California!  Next up are photos from a completely different trip- about a dozen waterfalls, in one of the wettest parts of Oregon.