How I Spent My Spring Break, Part 5

Before I get into the next part, I have a couple of comments. The first is actually a correction. I referred to "Lizard Wash" in parts 3 & 4. I'm getting old. It's called "Lizard Canyon" on the map. (What can I say? Half of them are called "Canyon" and half are called "Wash" on the maps. :-)

The second comment is about what Blogger does with photos. This is so wacky. If you look at the photo of the lizard in the last post, you can't tell that anything is amiss... unless you go compare it to the photo as it's presented in Flickr from where it is referenced. It turns out that Blogger is trimming off the right edge of the photo!  Very wacky.  (Any of you XHTML/CSS jocks want to explain it to me? I'll be happy to hear what it is that I'm missing. It will probably also explain why my two-up photos aren't rendering two-up.)

OK. I'm done. Back to adventures in the desert!

On Sunday we went for another trip into the desert. In the morning we drove to Agua Caliente County Park which is an in-holding within Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in the central-to-south on the western edge of ABDSP. As the name suggests, there's a natural hot spring. The park has an outdoor pool, a therapy pool (also outdoors), and an indoor pool. There are also streams flowing here and there around the park. There are *lots* of camp sites, including RV sites with full hook-ups. 

We paid the day-use fee to park in the lot and went for a hike along the Marsh Trail. The actual "marsh" was quite small, but there was a small stream that surfaced here and there along the trail. The nice thing about that is that it helps attract birds. The "adventurous" thing about that is that it attracts other wildlife (such as mountain lions, tho' we weren't afforded that particular adventure).

Among other things we saw Popcorn flower, Bigelow's Monkeyflower (I included a penny for scale), Desert Chickory, Brittlebush, Ocotillo, Desert Lavender, and Ghost Flowers. Of course, there were entire hillsides chock-full o' cacti! (From here I can see a couple of kinds of cholla, ocotillo, and barrel cacti plus brittlebush and desert lavender.)

Among the creatures I saw were the (I think) Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher...

the Verdin...

the Phainopepla...

and a hummingbird!

Given an opportunity to go back another time, I do believe I would. There are a bunch of rules about how long you can stay/camp. I think I recall that the upper limit stretches a-wa-a-a-ay out if you have a doctor's certificate indicating that you have a specific medical condition that would be helped by soaking in the mineral waters.