This is the Cholla (choy-a) Gardens along the roadway north of the I-10 entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. I cropped the thumbnail image to about the first 90 degrees of a 270 degree view. I took the images used to compose this panorama on Friday as we were headed home. Click to view the entire panorama.
Click on the image to enjoy this panorama showing the view down the draw facing southwest from Keys View lookout point in Joshua Tree National Park. In the distance, you can see the two dominant snow-capped peaks overlooking the Banning Pass; Mount San Jacinto and Mount San Gorgonio. In the valley below, you can see the darker group of hills that mark the boundary of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, also known as the San Andreas Fault.
Tonight, we’re staying in the delightfully rustic and comfortable Sunnyvale Garden Suites near Joshua Tree National Park, in Twentynine Palms, in the Mojave Desert, California. We’re staying here for a couple of nights while we’re visiting the park.
The place is a collection of suites situated on a patch of property that is landscaped and decorated like one might find in a desert ghost town. There are many types of desert vegetation and cactus here. I took this 3D image while we were returning from an afternoon walkabout.
As usual, if you do not have your free pair of 3D glasses, you can see the 2D image here.
Devil’s Tongue (ferocactus latispinus) is fairly popular in cultivation because it blooms very early, many young plants will bloom when they reach 4 inches in diameter (10 cm). The Devil’s Tongue Barrel has pinkish purple or yellow flowers, 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter (2.5 to 3.5 cm). They come in late autumn to early winter, and need a fair amount of bright sunlight to form.
(Above information courtesy of Desert Tropicals.)
The spikes on this Devil’s Tongue barrel cactus certainly look formidable. I liked this close-up that Verna took of the one in our garden last week. Click on the image to enlarge.
Stay tuned to see some more desert flowers Verna is going to post next week.
Corned beef brisket served with a dab of horseradish sauce along with red potatoes, baby carrots and cabbage. We had this dinner last Sunday and today we had left over corned-beef sandwiches for lunch.
This one is wider than usual, panning from the lighthouse to the right of the Malibu coastline in the distance. Verna had been taking photos of the lighthouse and surf from the fence. Click on the small panorama to see the big one.
