Gold poppies galore

Wow, it was a gorgeous day today. I was out hiking in it from 2:05 until about 4:55. Mid 70's, light breeze, no clouds, blue blue sky. I was amazed at how few people I saw out there today. I thought the place would be packed. I saw about 4 ATVs and 3 pickups. Must have been something really good on TV. Too bad I missed it. NOT.

Driving into Bulldog Canyon, I could see that there were Mexican gold poppies all over the place. I decided to hike up to a ridge pretty far in, to get away from the noise of the gun range on the other side of Usery Pass road. It took a long time to get up to the top of the ridge, for three reasons. First, I'm out of shape, but I always seem to be out of shape these days. Second, I had to keep stopping to take pictures. After I had taken about 40 pictures, I noticed that the camera batteries were low. I should charge them more often. I managed to get about 120 pictures before the camera refused to turn on any more, though. OK, third, I was hopping from rock to rock as much as possible, to keep from stepping on plants. I'm glad I didn't twist an ankle. Once I almost fell on a barrel cactus. I had stepped down onto a rock and lost my balance. As my arms whirled round and round, I could hear Linda Hurd doing her imitation of the robot on "Lost in Space"; "Danger Will Robinson. Danger". I think of that every time I whirl my arms around, ever since she said that as I was trying to ice skate in Houston many years ago. Now you should have a good mental picture of what I look like when I ice skate.

Several months ago, I left a golf ball up on that ridge. Ever since then, I've been thinking I should go get it. As I approached it today, though, I decided I would leave it there until I can get somebody to go up there with me to get it. Any volunteers? It was next to the rock on which I had left it. I put it back on the rock. I wonder if anybody else has been up there and seen it.

If I weren't so lazy, I would go to Todd's Desert Hiking Guide and look up the names of some of the flowers I got pictures of. He has pictures of lots of animals and plants on his site, and he seems to be adding to them all the time. The pictures are very good, too. Most of the time when I look up a plant on the web, the pictures are low resolution or can't be distinguished from the background or are too small or all of the above. The pictures on Todd's web site are excellent, though. He also has great advice for any newbies to desert hiking.

Click below for the pictures. You're probably going to get sick of pictures of Mexican gold poppies. But, as Peggy would say, "Too bad, so sad".

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