Walk report: Joshua Tree National Park

Hello, everyone.

Sorry about the hiatus in posting. I forgot. And there is, as usual, a wait list on sewing projects.

During our recent trip to visit family, we did a few walks. South Mountain Park has already been talked about.

Today I will mention that we also visited Joshua Tree National Park. This park is adjacent to Interstate 10 and just west of the California state border. (For those who remember, the infamous state ag department plant checkpoints don't appear to be staffed any more.) There are very few services in the area, as it's remote. Plan of bringing water and snacks with you if you're wanting to do a long walk. Also, of course, the usual desert area clothes should be worn as appropriate to the season.

The cutoff to the park entrance that one comes to while driving west looks like nothing. Take the exit, it's the only one as far as we could tell. It's straightforward, in that there are almost no crossing lanes between the highway and the park.

Part of Joshua Tree is in the low desert, and well furnished with such typical plants as ocotillo and some saguaro. The other part of the park is in the "medium" desert, neither low altitude and hot enough to be "low" nor high altitude and potentially cooler so as to be "high." The medium desert zone has as its famous plant the park's name plant, Joshua trees. These are an extra large species of yucca.

Another desert plant that grows in flocks in some parts of Joshua Tree is cholla cactus. This little thing that looks so cute from a distance is related to prickly pear cacti. Like them, if you touch it you will most likely get a flock of large and small (glochid) spines. In some places people plant cholla as a defensive hedge.

(We once had a prickly pear (nopal) hedge, it was pretty in bloom but a menace to beginning bicycle riders. It hid a huge cutter ant colony, too. Until we took the hedge out to put in a fence, we had no idea where the many, many attacks on our trees and shrubs were coming from.)

Cholla Garden cacti

There is a lovely short stroll near a cholla patch. They have helpfully placed some parking there. If I remember right, the park calls this the "Cholla Garden" as there are tons of chollas close together there.

Jumbo Rocks jack rabbit, with rocks

Farther on, we stopped at a rock outcrop called, I think, the Jumbo Rocks. I think they're granite, much eroded and really "neato" to look at and walk around. This area also has a parking area, and a couple of little tables to eat lunch at. (Bring your own picnic. And *pack out your trash.* I think I may have seen a restroom there. Check on the park map for restroom locations, campsite locations, entry gates, etc. There are no concession shops.)

Among the many very large rocks, and the amazing blooming cacti, there was a jackrabbit.

We got to Joshua Tree around 9 in the morning, an ideal time for strolling in the warm/hot desert. By the time we left, after a couple of strolls and reading some interpretive signs, it was nearing noon. We left by the gate at 29 Palms, a small city in California. I think there were about 20 cars and 30 motorcycles in  the entrance lane.

This is a really nice park for people who like to walk in the desert--some walking trails are rather long and you're supposed to sign the board at the trail head before you head out on them--and view nature.

This year was an exceptional year for the spring blossoms in the California desert. One final picture from Joshua Tree National Park:

Morning blossom, and a surprise

Hello, everyone.

We found this little beauty at the entrance to Bentsen Park today:

Tulipan, a native hibiscus of northern Mexico and southern Texas

 And here was the surprise:

 Can you see the thing that doesn't belong, way up at the top of that tree? Here is a close-up:

Opuntia, AKA prickly pear cactus or nopal

You really never know where a cactus seed will sprout. The birds are very fond of the egg-shaped red fruits, called tunas, and they scatter seeds all over the place. This is, however, the first time I have ever seen one of these sprouting in tree bark.

Walk Report: Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park and South Padre Island Boardwalks (birding center)

Hello, everyone.

As promised, a walk report for today.

The morning was beautifully cool yesterday...by South Texas standards at least. About 70F when we woke up, so we threw clothes on, gave creatures a little bit of fresh air for necessity, and jumped into the truck to go walk.

First stop, the Texas Welcome Center in Harlingen, where we got more detailed driving info for the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park. Friends, this is one of the national parks with no entry charge. (Enjoy it while you can!) We picked up pamphlets there, including a map of the Historic Battlefield Trail through Brownsville. Palo Alto is one of the end points of this approximately 10 mile long trail that goes from downtown Brownsville out to the battlefield along the old, abandoned railroad right-of-way.

At the battlefield, on Paredes Line Road (FM 1847), we found a lovely, clean visitors center with a park ranger in attendance, interesting and informative displays about the battle and its context, and a small, but clean, restroom facility. The restroom is accessible from outside--though I'm fairly sure they lock the front gate at the road when the park is closed.

Shaded picnic benches at Palo Alto Battlefield Nat'l Historic Park. The clumps of grass in the foreground grow on all of the higher ground in the area.

View along the Mexican Army's lines--pennants in red, white, and green for the Mexicans. On the other side, pennants in red, white, and blue for the Americans. The Mexican lines were actually on somewhat higher and drier ground--note the yuccas.

19th Century "shock and awe"--US Army large cannon--this view is from the American lines toward the Mexican lines.

 An overlook with shade and interpretive signage has been placed out in what was the "no man's land" of the battle.

Tracks of some of the many animals that live in the park. 

 We saw tracks and scat of various animals--javelinas, nilgai, possibly other deer, and some burrows that might have been homes for snakes or for crayfish. The ground is low and tends toward the swampy.

It's not easy to pick out at first, but the Rio Grande River was adjacent to the US Army lines at the time. (Or possibly it was already a cut off oxbow, called locally a resaca.) Where the old river bed was, there are no yucca plants or large grass clumps. It has defined banks that are concealed in the natural brushy cover, but the plants growing in the old bed are grayish and short. The plants on the former river banks and general area include Spanish Dagger yuccas, large clumps of pokey-leaved grasses, prickly pear cactus, and assorted wildflowers.

After visiting the park (about a mile or so stroll) we drove down to South Padre Island and strolled on the nature-viewing boardwalks at the Convention Center.

A heron looking for his lunch.

 We have heard that there is at least one American Alligator living in the mangroves and grasses and small water channels here, but we didn't see any.

A crab hiding in the roots of the grass. (The boardwalk is on the Laguna Madre estuary side of the island. No waves to speak of, and generally smooth water.

 While I didn't get any photos of them, there were quite a few diving ducks on the water of the Laguna. They were making splashy sounds when they dove under the ripples to fish.

View toward Laguna Madre.

 We didn't cover all of the boardwalks at the Island on this visit. We had gone over some very muddy, unused, rough road between Brownsville and Port Isabel and needed to clean the undercarriage of the mud gathered en route. Old Port Isabel Road is apparently only used within the city of Brownsville. Going toward Port Isabel, it's basically an unused track. Four wheel drive vehicles strongly recommended. Avoid this stretch if the weather has been wet, as the road surface was low-lying and full of ruts and mud pots even in dry weather when we went.

If you visit the battlefield and then want to go toward the beaches of South Padre, we recommend that you return to the expressway to get to Highway 100 to Port Isabel, or ask the park ranger if driving north on Paredes Line Road will give a good surface all the way to 100.

More a walk than a stroll

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday we went over to the Scenic Wetlands Center and Butterfly Garden in Edinburg. (For my out of area readers, this is how the town's name is correctly spelled. The town is in south Texas.)

We found some neat birds and some neat flowers.

Zoomed in from across the large holding pond: white egrets and something else. (Top left one moved his head!)

Tulipan, a native hibiscus of the region

Prickly pears (also called nopal) in a less-common color set.
Some of these flowers are outright red! (Most in this area have yellow flowers.)

Santa Ana After the Storm

Hello, everyone.

Last Friday our area had a fast-moving storm that had lots of lightning, rain, and wind. For some people, "wind" meant hurricane-force straight line winds that tore the roofs off of mobile homes. The worst of it hit in the area near Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.
We drove over there this morning to do a walk on their 7 mile long tram road. They told us that today was the first day they were open since the storm. There was a lot of wind damage, and they weren't using the tram yet, but it was open for walkers.

It's not usual to see a piece of cactus stuck in a tree.

One of the fallen limbs in the road--there were a lot

Walking around another fallen limb

Older mesquites had a lot of damage

The temperature was quite a bit cooler than yesterday, and the humidity was a lot lower. The wind was still very strong. Walking along the levee was in the full force of the wind, and my hat blew off. Descending into the wooded trail blocked it. Other than dodging the fallen trees, we had a pleasant walk. We even took the detour to see the river.

This tree was just encrusted with tiny snails.

There was downed wood at the river bank, too, but nothing else really. The water looked high--
that green blob appears to be a bush that is surrounded by water. (Yes, this is looking across the border.)

Seeing a different section of the Hike and Bike

Today we went to the Hike and Bike, but we didn’t do our usual route. My sweetie wanted to do “the levee.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Levee” can mean any elevated long lump in the landscape, in practice. It turned out that what he meant was to take a left on the paved turn-off along the way, before we reached the bridge with the swallows. The blacktopped, elevated path was indeed a levee, as it was a good 6 or 8 feet above all the surrounding area.

Little though one could tell it with all the brush growing up. We saw brush piles where a tractor had pushed out mesquite trees in the past, but they were next to 15 foot tall, thick-trunked mesquite trees and bushy nopal cactus plants that must have been 8 feet across and 7 feet tall. So the brush clearing activities were all in the past. After a while we came to a place where the blacktop turned left and descended to meet the regular (also blacktopped) path that we usually walk. There was another path, though, just a set of tire tracks along the top of the levee, and we took it. We saw the biggest walking-stick bug I have seen in a good while along it. We got a good overview of the city’s project to install—I guess—water pipes along the road. Eventually we got the the road and found the turn-off that leads to the parking lot. That was steep, but the dirt was dry and the rocks in the dirt were not loose, so it was okay to walk down on. When we got to the bottom, we found a sign (facing the parking lot, of course) that said “Levy run”. And then I realized what my sweetie had been talking about when he said he wanted to do the levee.

It was a fresh, beautiful Monday morning, with very few people out. We saw a collection of cottontails, and a dove that was dancing on the path to lead us onward, and a roadrunner (paisano bird) that was dancing around between trees off of the path. I think there must be at least two, and maybe three, pairs of roadrunners that live in the Hike and Bike park. Along with the small group of javelinas.

On Thursday last, we saw a javelina boar, but he wasn’t posing for pictures and we didn’t get the camera out in time, so his handsome profile went uncaptured. (Darn.) Today, no javelinas, even though we got to the Hike and Bike around 0740.

Also today the new camera arrived. I will try to learn how to take good pictures to upload with it. Today’s pictures are still with the old camera.

because every Valley blog needs a palm tree!

The walking stick, next to my sweetie's hiking boot for size.