The Anza-Borrego Desert gets its name from Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, who crossed the desert in 1774, and the Spanish word for sheep (“borrego”). Those would be native bighorn sheep. This desert preserve is California’s largest state park, more than 600,000 acres.

We drove out last month to check out the blooms in the desert and at first were disappointed. After the Superbloom in Walker Canyon, everything else kind of paled. But when I got home and reviewed my photos I realized the desert is really beautiful in its own way. Plus the yearly annual rainfall is only 6.18 inches, so it’s unfair to compare.

Still we did manage to find a few wildflowers….

White flowers don’t show up as well.

I really like those little clouds that look like puffs of smoke. The sky was deep beautiful blue as usual.

Not sure what the white stuff is, but it looked like a salt flat from a distance. We went the other way, so never saw it up close.

The landscape is so different out there….

The weather was beautiful while we were there, but the average temp in July is 107F (41.6C).

This reminds me of the Badlands in South Dakota.

Here you can see how sandy the terrain is. It’s very soft, loose sand, so you have to be careful if you’re not driving an SUV.

We were curious about the Salton Sea, but didn’t have time, so got this shot from a distance. The history of this body of water is pretty sad, which you can read more about here.

A few more purple and yellow wildflowers. Next time I’ll focus on the town in this park, Borrego Springs.

Great weekend, everyone!

{carole}