Playing in the Desert: Day 1

Our younger son's family has never experienced Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. With daytime temps in the low 80s, now was the time to go.

This is our favorite and closest desert. It encompasses some of the most diverse desert landscape in the world. Covering more than 600,000 acres, Anza-Borrego can't fully be explored. Nearly two-thirds of the Park is pristine wilderness, sheltering an astonishing proliferation of plant and animal life, including the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep (which we missed seeing this trip).

We began at the Park Visitors Center which houses award-winning exhibits on the paleontology, archaeology, geology, and wildlife of this desert region. Its informational film, A Year in the Desert, gave us a wonderful overview of what we were to discover.
One of our goals is always to discover wildflowers. After reading this announcement, "Rain since July 1 ZERO inches" we knew what to expect. While blooms were scarce, a burst of color was glimpsed every now and then.



There is not only natural history here. Anza-Borrego lies at the crossroads of early California history. Its pathways were shared by explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, the Southern Emigrant Trail, the Butterfield Stage and the Mormon Battalion. Much earlier, ancient artists began to leave their enigmatic traces at thousands of sites throughout the Park. These Native Americans hunted and gathered here as long as 5,000 years ago. Earlier still, Anza-Borrego's plains were roamed by herds of mammoths and camels. These huge animals became extinct around 8,000 B.C, leaving behind what maybe the greatest repository of Pliocene/Pleistocene megafauna in the United States.


After learning as much as we could about the natural history here, and before the temperatures reached their max, we went on an art explore.
We visited the numerous Galleta Meadows locations to view the art and metal sculptures dispersed throughout the Borrego Valley. Some of these sculptures depict mammoths, gomphotheres, and other animals that once lived here. Scattered around the town of Borrego Springs, these meadows are privately owned desert estate land which features over 130 large metal art sculptures, created by artist Ricardo Breceda. This menagerie of metal masterpieces was commissioned by the estate owner, Dennis Avery (heir to the Avery label fortune).



Elephants, raptors, sloths, and saber-toothed tigers prowl the desert just waiting to be discovered. From ground-hugging desert tortoises to rearing horses, each rust-colored sculpture is filled with intricate detail–from the curling eyelashes of 10-foot high elephants to the shaved metal fur of the equally imposing sloths.




We boondocked on park land, up above it all. Our grands slept with us in our camper while their parents broke in their new, awesome tent.

We stargazed and watched the sun set.
While we laid in bed, in the complete darkness only a desert can provide, we reminisced about all the wonders we experienced in our first Borrego day.
"The desert wears... a veil of mystery.
Motionless and silent it evokes in us
an elusive hint of something unknown,
unknowable, about to be revealed.
Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting --
but waiting for what?"
-Edward Abbey

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