Spring in the Desert

Welcome to the Southern California desert in springtime! It was raining as we set out this morning, but look what a beautiful day it is on the other side of the mountains! First we headed out to Joshua Tree National Monument for a picnic and some rock scrabling (that's rock climbing without all the rock climbing gear). Jim and I used to come out here and camp a lot when we first got married. It's beautiful in the spring
when the wild flowers are in bloom! We set the kids loose on the rocks with warnings to be careful and watch for rattlesnakes. Cheryl is such a nut... She found a perfect sized hole in the rock and decided to park it and rest. Chris loved rock scrabling! He has to make it to the top... I wish he'd apply some of that determination to his school work, lol!
Here they are at the top of the hill again!


After a late lunch we got back in the car and headed towards Anza Borrego. We entered Anza Borrego from the east side and found several off-roading rental shops... My family can't resist a chance to play! The off-roading area in Indian Wells was HUGE, but we only had an hour rental... Do you see Chris driving his own bike? He was so excited... Yep, he's 16yrs now!

We only saw one type of cactus in bloom (we call them prickly pears), but there were lots and lots of wildflowers!

On the way home we stopped in Julian and picked up an apple pie. We MUST have Julian apple pie! YUMMY!!!

Believe it or not, it started to rain on our way through Julian... it was so cold that it was falling as slush. They were expecting snow that evening and the town was closing early... we got there just in time to get our pie and get out of there before it started snowing!

It's been a fun week... my last week of being unemployed! Yep, Panasonic called me this morning (while we were on our way to the desert) and made me an official offer. I start on Monday!

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!