Desert oasis

Although it was forecast to be a wet and chilly day DIL and I decided to take the girls and Kymba to explore a new park we had been told about which lies a little further along the road from the Red Rock Canyon of the blip on 25th Feb. As you can see the hills also have a few layers of the red sandstone sandwiched between the grey. The line of hills was spectacular, especially with their heads in the clouds and against the unusually grey sky. There was so much to see in terms of vegetation and scenery that I decided on a collage as I won't be back here for a while. On the bottom left you can see a small specimen of a Joshua tree in the foreground of the hills. These were named as they reminded folk of the biblical reference to Joshua holding up his hands to the sky in prayer. They are a member of the Yucca family and are native to South West USA, particularly prominent in the Mohave Desert where the tallest are found. On the drive in I noticed that some had whitish tips which I had not noticed on previous visits and on checking Google these could be signs of the tree coming into bloom, which it does in some years in February but only when the weather has been near or below freezing over the winter. The cactus top right was pretty spectacular and appeared all over the desert floor - the spines were for real! Soon after we returned to the car the heavens opened so we were really lucky as we were not kitted out for rain. The girls had been kept cosy underneath a couple of quilt layers in their buggy and were ready for their feed in the car. Changing two babies' dirty nappies in the confined space of the car afterwards though proved interesting but achievable. Another successful day out.