Cactus 3

I think you get the picture now. There an infinite variety of these thorny plants in the desert. Many time I wanted to reach out and test the texture with my hand and fingers, but, some of these thorns have barbs that will not release from the skin and then begin to fester. So I looked, but did not touch.

Cactus 2

I have only encountered cactus in two places in our province but when travelling in the desert, it is everywhere. It takes many forms but all of them are nasty. Whether in the garden, in the wild, or in the parks, these plants are rarely vandalized. The price one pays for messing with one of these is too high. Even the Yucca above, which, I suppose, is not a cactus, has very dangerous spines with sharp edges and points. Cacti make great refuges for all sort of birds and other critters.

If you come from rain forest country, as I do, there is an attractive beauty to these desert plants because they take on so many different shapes, sizes and colours. We have been in this desert in spring and that is when the cacti really shine with their various buds, blossoms, and fruit.

I have some more unique and interesting cacti to show you tomorrow.

Cactus

Birds of the Desert

Snowbirds are not the only creatures that venture south for the winter. There are numerous species of migratory birds that winter in the desert including Canada Geese. The most prolific birds we saw were the Humming Birds. They were everywhere! Here is a sampling of birds both in and out of captivity. I never left home without my camera.

The Last Road Pictures

I always find it interesting the way the topography changes as the miles drift by. Sometimes the changes are gradual and other times they are quite abrupt. With eyes glued to the road in the rain, it is a pleasure when it clears up a bit and you can see beyond the mist thrown up by the truck in front of you.

Close to Weed, California, (what does it say when they name a town after a noxious plant) the snow was quite evident and we even saw small patches of it in the ditches. We passed numerous warning signs such as this one, as well as large overhead read-a-boards but they all remained unlit and that was fine with us.  

We stopped at most Rest Stops and took a quick stroll before getting back in the car for more driving. We find this helpful to reduce fatigue in the body as well as in the mind. The USA has a good network of these stops and they are a vital safety feature. We noticed that a few of them were closed, blocked off. We made some inquiries and found that it was due to state funding cuts. California is on the verge of bankruptcy and they cut back where they can. The new governor, Jerry Brown, is tackling the deficit by taking the bus to his new offices. That should work.

In a few years, the pot holes in the freeway, which were just starting in many places, will be hazards. Many places where we stopped had very much evidence of hard times. There were even people begging at some of these rest stops, something we had never encountered before.

Lake Shasta, always a jewel. We have seen the water level much lower than this, so we can see why the rain was welcome here. There was a very large construction project on the highway here, building a bridge over an arm of the lake. It was one of the few new projects we saw anywhere.

That California Winter Look

Travelling the I5 in the winter can be tricky. Usually there is only rain from Seattle to Grant's Pass. After that, it can change in a moments notice when the winter storms sweep in from the Pacific and hit the higher elevations. We got lucky this year. Rain on the way down, and warm showers on the way home. Of course, the down side to that is that it is a bit grey and boring. Central California is especially grey. We had no blue sky from Mojave to Sacramento.

There is that long stretch where all one can do is count trucks and how many times we pass the same ones, and watch out for 'smokies' because everyone is driving over the limit.

How many millions of nut trees and fruit trees did we pass? It is hard to say but I would not want to prune them all. The rows are insanely perfectly straight and they go as far as the eye can see. They are up to their armpits in fruit and nuts in this country but when you go to a farmers market or see a truck selling produce in the parking lot of a gas station, you can be sure it will be twice what we pay at home. Oranges are being harvested now and we passed so many trucks carrying tons of them. Yet, they sell them for almost twice what we pay at home, where there are no oranges growing anywhere.

On the way south, we spotted these, the first palm trees and orange trees and we got really excited. Somehow, going north gives one a different perspective on the same trees. Not so excited. More than once I was tempted to take I5 south after filling up with gas and see how long before busylizzy saw through my ploy.  

You know you are heading north when the shorts and T-shirts are replaced with jeans and hoodies. A few more miles down the road, the hoodies were replaced with parkas. busylizzy is sporting a fake smile. She likes the warm better than the cold.  

And the last orchard of any type we saw before we hit the sheep and cattle country of Oregon was an Olive Grove. These are interesting and beautiful trees with their gnarled charm.

These Olive trees are confused. On one branch there are hard green, rosy cheeked early ripe, pinky red all over, black ripe, and old shrivelled ready to fall off olives. My theory is that they are picked all at once and then dyed either green or black. That way they all taste terrible and become destined to make a perfectly good pizza taste terrible too.