Thank you .. ‘Dirt du Jour’

for the glowing review! "Go ask Alice ... where all the best vineyard gardens are. She's an erudite charmer; you'll have fun!"

Desert Travel

Eerie Vision: The Salton Sea

Salton Sea Photo - Photo © Alice Joyce

My desert sojourn to Anza-Borrego State Park followed a route south along California State Highway 86 in order to enter the park from the eastern entrance, leading into the town of Borrego Springs. The drive along Hwy. 86 runs nearly parallel to the western edge of the Salton Sea in the Imperial Valley, past Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach; desolate towns that time seems to have passed by. A unique inland body of water some 200 feet below sea level, the strangely eerie Salton Sea resulted from massive flooding from the Colorado River over 100 years ago.

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Botanical Gardens

Rancho La Puerta Cooking School

RLP Wooly thyme and Paving La Cocina Photo © Alice Joyce

La Cocina que Canta! The Kitchen that Sings: Cooking School & Culinary Center at Rancho La Puerta. Lush six-acre kitchen gardens of Tres Estrellas are located a bit north of the Rancho’s main landscape, with beautiful vistas of Mt. Kuchumaa

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Desert Travel

Joshua Tree Journey

Joshua Tree Silhouettes Photo © Alice Joyce

Joshua Tree National Park: The parkland spans diverse ecosystems; taking in a section of the Colorado Desert – part of the vast Sonoran Desert, the Mojave, and an area of the Little San Bernardino Mountain range. The flora encompasses Palo verde (Cercidium) and pencil cholla (Cylindropuntia), smoketree, ocotillo (Fouqueria), and chuparosa (Justicia). It’s the north part of the park that is, in fact, the southern boundary of the Mojave Desert: the special habitat where you’ll see the Joshua tree – Yucca brevifolia.

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