day trip // desert wander

Reason #5857 I love living in California: drive two hours in any direction, and the landscape will look completely different and magical. Thanks to all the heavy rains this year, all kinds of wildflowers are in bloom in the desert for the first time in years, so a group of friends and I made plans to drive out and see it for ourselves. Lots of picture-taking, climbing rocks, trying not to get pricked by cacti, and general silliness. The perfect day.

Chunks of these cacti would be all over the ground, just waiting to stab our ankles. We dubbed them "death balls."

The weirdest/coolest trees ever!

We saw this from the road and immediately pulled over. We called it Pride Rock.

Dawn enjoys her Lion King moment.

Raina found this painted rock, and we decided to re-hide it.

Shortly after this photo was taken, Dawn came across a red snake on the move, and she proceeded to lose her shit, and ran away screaming.

Looking for cool rocks. Also, bird bones.

I love this group of women so much, and I'm glad we got to do this! It's funny; we were originally headed to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park visitor/information center to start our hike/picture-taking, but all of these photos happened when we decided to pull over on a whim because we saw something cool from the road and wanted to check it out. Sometimes I think the best day trips happen that way. Bonus: no other tourists around to clutter up our shots! (Once we actually got to the visitors center, we saw tons of tourists all parked along the same stretch of road, taking their photos all in the same area. Amateurs.)

desert getaway part III // pioneertown

Our final day in the desert brought us to Pioneertown, a former movie set for old westerns in the 40's and 50's. We came for the food at Pappy & Harriet's, and stayed to check out the ghost town-like grounds and front yard oddities of the people who live there. One of those places where you feel transported to a different time.

 Equally as charming as the shops and buildings were the front yard decor of Pioneertown's residents. We saw a rusted car with a cacti garden growing out of the trunk, and a shrine-like collection of broken bits of pottery and dishes laid out in a circle on the ground. Anywhere else, this would seem slightly mad or out of place, but in this desert town it just seemed to fit.

With our bellies full of food and our desert adventuring sated, we said goodbye to this quaint little bit of California history, and made our way back down south to San Diego. A perfect end to the best two-day getaway I've had in a long time :)