Amboy Crater in Wildflowers

THE WINTER BEAUTY OF ANZA-BORREGO
A great place to visit n Anza-Borrego State Park  in the winter months is Bisnaga Wash, flowing down from Whale Peak under the crisp, clear skies of the southeastern area of the park.  Soaring hawks, the edges of storms collapsing at the rain shadow, and ebullient rainbows disappearing into the blue sky.

Bisnaga is an Americanism for the Spanish Biznaga, which refers to tall barrel cactus.

AMBOY CRATER IN WILDFLOWERS
A volcano flowing with neon green floats on a sea of  yellow desert sunflowers. A season of spectacular rains may come only every five to eight years in the Southwest, producing prodigious blooms that bring sightseers from around the world and their insect pollinators from seemingly out of nowhere.

Amboy Crater was featured in a Huell Howser California Gold episode about Amboy in 1993 and the volcano itself came to life as a set location for the 1959 movie Journey to the Center of the Earth.

THE BUSY LIFE OF BOX CANYON
The little narrow canyon  was in the 1840s the best route into San Diego from Arizona and Texas, and still showcases the Mormon Battalion hand-built road which became the route of the Butterfield Stage line.  The stage route can be easily seen today, struggling between the narrowing canyon walls as it makes its way into Blair Valley and once-upon-a-time all the way to Los Angeles.

Somehow, an abundance of wildlife and color have been left behind, and thrive after 175 years, for time has not diminished the richness of the environs here, as they were for San Diego’s early settlers, which include an unusual density of barrel cactii, birds and and buzzing pollinators among a diverse garden of flowering plants and juniper trees.