The Cactus Trip Diaries

On my previous visits to the US there were numerous plants and places where I thought: ‘Angie would love to see this!’ so the theme of this phase of winter’s travels is to take her to those plants and places. And so we’re on our way to Tucson, Arizona. Last month when Eunice and I drove to Tucson, it was a mammoth drive, and Angie had asked if we could avoid those when ever practical – this should be a relaxing holiday as well. That’s why we left from El Cajon, rather than Bellflower and why we would spend the night in Ajo (translated: Garlic!) and why we made a side trip back into Anza Borrego so that Angie could get an appreciation of the plants and scenery at the southern end of the park.

Our goal was the multi-headed Ferocactus chrysacanthon that Juergen had first shown Eunice in 2009. She had emailed me the coordinates but I had forgotten to write them down, so we were fortunate to get a phone signal after we had entered the park so that Eunice could read out the coordinates to us while I punched them into SatNav.

We made a couple of stops before reaching the target Fero – brilliant sunshine with a cooling breeze whistling through the Fouqueria splendens – again the Ferocactus, E. engelmannii, Cylindropuntia bigelowi, Opuntia basilaris and Mammillaria dioica were in bud with one or two plants of each species in full flower. That’s the way to spend a Sunday morning.

We returned to I-8 to continue our journey east. After a few hours we stopped for fuel at a settlement called Dateland – resisted the temptation to buy a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Where the heck is Dateland?’ but bought some other souvenirs and at Gila Bend took the 85 south. We sailed through all the Border Control check points, obviously looking more like US citizens then illegal imigrants, despite my suntan after 6 months travel.

A impromptu stop north of Ajo confirmed my believe that Angie had seen Ferocactus wislizenii in fruit rather than in flower. She also spotted and photographed her first saguaro in the certain knowledge that she will see more during the next few days.

Carlsbad is ideally located about half way between LA and San Diego, right along I-5. A scenic coastal drive will take you the Torrey Pines, head east for Julian and Anza Borrego or enjoy the Carlsbad Marathon next week. It was good to catch this last snippet of information as we learned that due to the marathon most hotel room was booked for our planned 2nd visit next week. No worries, there is plenty of accommodation nearby.

Eunice arrived fashionably late and joined us for the tail end of breakfast at Denny’s. At exactly 10 a.m., just as arranged, we arrived at Steven Hammer’s Sphaeroid Institute and were welcomed by the man himself. Despite the fact that it is almost impossible and most impractical for us to purchase plants to take back to the UK, Steve gave up his morning to guide us through his shade houses and show us some of his favourite curiosities. This was my third or fourth visit in as many years but the experience is always inspiring and Steven’s choice of current favourites changes from year to year. Again, the cameras clicked and I’m pleased to say that this time the images came out much better as I had changed my zoom lens, with limited aperture range for the 60 mm macro-lens.

All too soon it was time to move on, as I was due to give my ‘What I Saw Last Winter’ presentation at the Palomar Cactus & Succulent Society in nearby Escondido. About 60-70 members again made us very welcome just as they had done at the Los Angeles and Orange County C&S Societies. There were lots of plants for sale (Angie thinks that they were all from one nursery) and the whole event made us think that we were at a UK zone convention rather than at the equivalent of a monthly branch meeting. The meeting ran from noon to 3 p.m. and apart from the usual club business and my one hour presentation, one of the members gave a presentation concerning the genus Acacia in the family Fabaceae – very appropriate for a C&S audience as it seems that we have been stung, scratched and torn by these plants or by members of other genera in this family that share their habits with cacti. I learned that many of the Australian Acacia do not have these thorns – not much use tome as Australia has no endemic cacti to tempt me for a visit.

Again we had lots of invites to join members for a visit to their collections but again, our packed itinerary did not provide time to follow up the invitations this time as we had arranged to visit Juergen Menzel in El Cajon for the remainder of the afternoon. Juergen is an excellent grower of cacti and succulents with the emphasis on Mexican cacti and the propagation of the rarer and more unusual taxa. He had set aside the afternoon to allow us to admire his plants and again, cameras were clicking, even though he was off on a camping holiday to Texas the following morning. We finished the day with a meal at his favourite, Thai, restaurant – a nice change from steak.

We fell in bed exhausted – another great day.

We woke up to a grey day, lots of rain pouring down. Shall we proceed with today’s plan, a visit to the Anza Borrego Desert Park or look for some shopping outlets? Although yesterday’s visit to the Huntington Botanical Gardens had increased the number of cactus images on our hard drives, Angie was still to see her first US cactus in habitat, so Anza Borrego it was.

It was still raining but only a light drizzle as we arrived at Santa Ysabel where we stopped at the Julian Pie Company for a traditional Dutch Apple Pie with Cinnamon ice-cream – yum yum. We passed the 4,000 ft altitude marker, still in rain, but we then dropped quickly to 2,000 ft and we were in the dry. Remarkable! But obviously what ever had stopped the rain from following us is the reason why this area is a desert. There are occasional rains, causing flash floods that disappear again in hours, as we saw during the video in the visitors centre, but they are far and few between.

The sun had come out but the clouds over the hills all around us made an impressive addition to the scenery. We saw Ferocactus chrysacanthus, Mammillaria dioica, Echinocereus engelmannii and cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelowii and C. wolfii and Fouqueria splendens as well as millions of desert wildflowers.

So not only did Angie see her first US cacti in habitat, but as in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the beginning of my ‘Winter Break’, she again saw the desert in flower. Nice for our upcoming presentations in Europe.

We arrived safely in Carlsbad where we easily found the Motel 6 on Carlsbad Drive where I have stayed for at least one night per year since 2008. Nothing had changed much.

Our hotel in Monrovia had been selected to give us easy access to The Huntington – it was right on Huntington Drive. It would have helped if I had taken this road heading south-west instead of to the north-east. Never mind, we were looking for a place to have breakfast and I realised that the foothills were on the ‘wrong’ side of the road as we parked up. The matter was corrected when we left.

The Huntington’s opening hours are 12:00 to 16:30 and despite our drive in the wrong direction, we still arrived one hour too early. I had expected her to be jet lagged, but her body clock was still 8 hours ahead of California, so had been rearing to go when I was still waking up. We found a Starbucks to kill time and entered these famous gardens soon after noon, straight to the Cactus Garden (there are several other themed gardens, including a Chinese and a Japanese Garden).

The mass planting of some of the cacti make a very photogenic subject, even though it does not reflect the way that the plants grow in nature. And I still have to get used to see South American cacti growing alongside Californian cacti or South African succulents.

The weather forecast had been for rain but we were glad to see that they had got it wrong, at least until we had arrived at our hotel and went out for a bite to eat before heading to the Orange County Cactus & Succulent Society at the Fullerton Arboretum, where a good crowd had gathered to see ‘What I Saw Last Winter 2010-2011’ – just the South American part.

Another rest day – monitoring Angie’s progress on flight tracker across the Atlantic and the North American continent. When her flight touched down at LAX, the temperature was a cool 12 C (16 C when she had boarded the flight in London) and it poured down with rain –  she had left the UK in brilliant sunshine.

Never mind – a change (in scenery) is as good as a break.