Cali Wandering

Last week I ambled up to the Sierra to meet some friends and tour Yosemite.  On the way up I encountered threatening skies over the San Joaquin valley...no rain though.

The rain came in Yosemite, where the falls were rolling.  However, at this time of year...mid May...the falls are usually a lot stronger than this.  The valley was green, with flowers and streams flowing nicely in an orderly fashion.  In a normal year the streams are, however, rather disorderly, raging all over the place, inundating meadows, racing through the woods over the trails.  It's a dry year in 2014.

The Lizards hanging out at the Merced River near Happy Isles.

Vernal Falls.  We hiked up the Mist trail as far as the bridge, but were too lazy (old, fat, outta shape, didn't want to get wet?) to go any farther.

The Ahwanee from inside...

And out.  Only issue I have is that you need to wear a tie to dinner.  So, I don't do dinner at the Ahwanee.

The notorious Devils Slide section of highway 1 between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay has finally been bypassed by a tunnel.  Now the highway bed has been transformed into a hiking/biking trail and you can stroll far above the sea and past old World War II defensive installations like this one.

The road was frequently washed out over the decades.  When the bike trail was built the hillside was retrofitted.  These are bolts driven into the slope to stabilize it.  How well they work will be determined by the next really wet winter...if we ever get one!

Blooming Saguaros

As my trip winds down, I've stalled in the Arizona desert.  It's pretty this time of year, with fine weather and blooming cactus.  The Lizards got a treat when we visited my friend Kate in Tucson...they got to meet one of their heroes!

A real lizard, catching some rays.

Saguaros are at their blooming peak in May, after the wildflowers and many other cacti.  So they have the show mostly to themselves. 

But a few prickly pears are still producing fine flowers.

The mesquite bushes are blooming!

A dove hangin' out on top of a saguaro, while the insects work the flowers.

A clump of hedgehog cacti.  Their blooms are among the earliest cactus flowers, appearing mostly in March.  If you want to see a mixture of flowers, early to mid April is probably the best time to visit the Sonoran desert...in an average year.

A batch of teddy bear chollas.  At the lower right are a bunch of clumps that have fallen off the cacti.  These take root in the ground, resulting in new cactus plants.  As a result the teddy bears tend to grow in gardens, which can cover several acres.  And if you step on one of those clumps, it tends to, uh, stay with you.

Fishhook barrel blooms add to the natural symmetry of the plant.

A nice batch of saguaro blooms.  They are a bit hard to photograph since they grow mostly on the tips of upraised arms.  You need a good zoom lens or, you have to find an arm pointed downward close to the ground.