The Cactus Trip Diaries

It turned out that we had been very fortunate with the weather – yesterday may have been overcast, but today’s rain was heavy, looked to have settled in for the day and was falling as snow at higher altitudes where we had been on Saturday. So today became a driving day, eating miles on main roads and freeways.

By around 2 p.m. we had passed Fresno and were beginning to see Yucca brevifolia, the Joshua Tree and although we knew that we were going to see more and better samples, we needed to stretch our legs and I needed to gently exercise my ceased up back.(S1266). A short walk into the desert did not reveal any more plants of interest.

S1267 was a brief stop due to Cylindropuntia bigelowii appearing on the scene

Our target for the day was to see a plant recommended by Rob Skillin (S1268) of a Sclerocactus polyancistrus that he called ‘Blondie’, but that can be found on the internet under the name of ssp albispinus. The directions took us off the main road onto a dirt track called Motorcross road, so you can imagine the type of surface we were on. We then made another turning on a narrower track of equal motorcross quality – great for bad backs! The GPS told us that we had arrived and disbelieving we looked out of the window and there it was, right along the side of the road. A beautiful plant with massive long silvery spines. We found a spot to tuck the car away off the track and walked (in the rain) up the hillside, finding more plants of different ages, including a young seedling, about 2.5 inch pot size. Cliff also spotted the only Opuntia basilaris of the day, var. treleasei is reported from Kern Co., which is where we were, so that will go onto my metadata as the ID. And there was another Cylindropuntia, but looking half dead, so I can’t be sure what sp. it is.

A great day with a welcome return of cacti in front of the lens!

We made it to Barstow where we found a Motel 6 to launch us to Death Valley / Kingston Peak area.

I guess that just about everything there is to know about the Yosemite (or Mighty Josie, as I prefer to call it, as I can’t seem to remember the US pronunciation) National Park can be found on the Internet, a mere Google Search away. Try http://www.nps.gov/yose/ for starters. What you won’t find there are the 323 image files that are my record of our visit, or the 176 pics of Cliff and another couple of hundred + taken by Eunice. This is a very photogenic location. Again, no cacti or other succulents were found, although Eunice reports Dudleya found in the Park.

We somehow managed to persuade a Ranger that we did not need Snow Chains, as we had All Terrain All Weather tyres and 4×4.

Today was a real ‘photographer’s outing’: 67 of my pictures are of ‘textures’ – pictures of bark of some of the pine trees – very individual, it seems as though each tree has its bark ‘fingerprint’.

We were by no means the only photographers, and it seemed at times as though we were at the shoot out at the OK Coral, with people parading their cameras and lenses through the park. At one location, we joined a row of cameras-on-tripods and their owners and wondered if we ended up at a Canon convention until we spotted and joined a lady with a Nikon D3. It transpired that we were in the middle of a photography class, with the lecturer a little unnerved by our invasion, particularly as Cliff put a face on a small snowman using dirt from the road. All of a sudden, tripods were turned round and people were queuing to have their picture taken with this entertaining creature, rather than with the dramatic back drop of Yosemite’s signature landmarks. And the light was poor under a heavily clouded sky, so several pictures were taken of the same subject with different camera settings to allow playtime on the laptop’s ‘dark room software’.

All good things come to an end and we managed to get back to the Great Western in Oakhurst just before 6 p.m. keen to download and view a magnificent set of pics – not so much our doing, but the splendid settings make it difficult not to take breath taking pictures – thousands of people around us were doing the same.

We broke tradition and instead of staying at a Motel 6, have a suite for 2 nights at a Best Western instead. Why? ‘Cause there are no Motel Sixes near Yosemite. And, because this one was rather cheaper than the usual Motel 6 offering and MUCH nicer. Take a look at
http://www.yosemitegatewayinn.com/virtual.html

But let’s start the day at the beginning. We left Motel 6 in Santa Rosa and had an uneventful journey east. I had taken some pain killers for my back, so slept for most of the journey, waking up in fat grasslands, not unlike Holland. The only surprise worth pointing the camera at was a huge wind farm.

Things got more interesting as we hit the foothills of the Sierras and started seeing snow on the hill tops. Quite a bit of it – but the roads were clear. Yet the signs along the road said that the carrying of snow chains was obligatory. We felt that the chunky all road tires on Eunice’s Toyota Landcruiser were up to the job and saved ourselves US$ 156 for a set. They must see the tourists coming and then fleece them.

Light was failing fast as we drove through the north west side of the park. Came across some stunning scenery, but too dark for descent pictures without a tri-pod. We have the whole day tomorrow to go back to the places spotted this time round. Among the most impressive landscapes that we have seen in recent months.

All today’s pictures in Yosemite are filed under S1265.

And then, as we turned the corner, there it was – ‘Not Another Bloody Sunset’ and an absolute beauty!

We officially declared today ‘Tree Hugging Day’, and we would have been doing that if these buggers had not been so damn big that we would have needed 10 people to accomplish a group hug. Following local advice, we retraced our footsteps (syn. tyre tracks) and drove south out of Eureka, along Highway 101 and took the turn off for the Avenue of the Giants – very appropriate. This was in fact the old 101, and the two run parallel to each other. It runs for 32 miles before re-joining the current 101. All pictures are filed as S1264. It will be no surprise to learn that there were no cacti or other succulent plants recorded at this stop.

I could give you lots of information about this stop, but it has been done so much better than I could do, at http://avenueofthegiants.net/ Yes, Eunice drove her car through that tree too!

I could tell you lots about the Sequoia, but again, it has been done so much better than I could have done at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia

Which leaves me just to report the only news worthy item (for me): I managed to put my back out as I got out of the driver seat of the Toyota Landcruiser. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. It slows me down a bit and managing the pain is a distraction, but apart from that it’s just a matter of mixing rest with light exercise to prevent the muscle that has gone into spasm from ceasing up altogether. Over the weeks my back seems to have become used to getting out of the passenger seat rather than the driver seat.

I still managed to take a cool 251 images and a few video clips – so business as usual.

Tomorrow we drive over to Oakhurst for a day in Yosemite the day after, providing that the roads are clear.

Cheers

PK

Joe & Eloise, (Rob Skillin’s in-laws and our hosts in Fremont) were already up, though still in pyjamas, when we showered and presented ourselves for breakfast, around 6:30 as we had a fair distance (c 240 miles) to go, to get to the city of Eureka, in northern California. The distance was not the main problem, but we wanted to follow Route 1, the coast road, which was a slow, standard two lane road. The additional problem was that there were various locations along the road that demanded to be visited.

A minor complication was added when we missed a turn and ended up on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. This actually turned out to be a bonus, as it took us along downtown San Francisco and provided the opportunity to add to our San Francisco Tourist Picture portfolio (S1257) and a further bonus was that we had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge again and stopped off at the vista point again, for a Now & Then session, as Rudolf would say – yesterday’s, threatening to rain and today’s, basking in sunshine (S1254#2). Time constraints prevented us from repeating yesterday’s other stops.

Paul Thomson’s monograph on the genus Dudleya records D. eastwoodii from Bodega Head, easily reached from Route 1. S1258 saw us climbing over ‘the head’ in search of this ‘apple green’ coloured Dudleya, without any luck. We wasted quite a bit of time here.

As we drove up to this spot, we noticed an alterative car park facing the Ocean, so we agreed to have just a quick look there. (S1259) and I thought that I found the plant. Nice rosettes, succulent leaves, but hang on – after a dozen or so pictures I found a plant with flower remains and these were NOT from a Dudleya. So what had I been taking pictures off? A Lewisia? No idea at this stage. As we climbed back to the car park, I stumbled across ‘the real thing’ – a patch with quite a few plants, but these were D. farinosa, NOT D. eastwoodii. The honour of finding that plant goes to Cliff, who had stayed in the car park and, bored, had found the plants when he strolled along the car park’s edge.

S1260 was Sonoma State Beach, S1261 was north of Elk (no, NOT E.L.K!), S1262 was south of Albion and S1263 was at Ocean Meadows Beach – all were scenic locations and gave us more information about the distribution of D. eastwoodii and D. farinosa. At S1262 we also found Sedum spatulata (?).

Time was against us and we turned inland to find the 101 to speed up the remainder of today’s journey, as the light was now too poor for photography. As the road wound its way through pine forest, we noticed that the tree trunks along the side of the road were getting fatter and fatter. We drove right through the Giant Redwood forest (coastal form) but in the dark, so will see them properly, hopefully in sunshine, tomorrow.

For a future occasion:

For much of its length, Highway 101 is unremarkable, but for a 78 mile stretch from Eureka to Crescent City, the road transforms into a breathtaking Redwood Highway. Winding along the Pacific coastline, you’ll find yourself surrounded by lush redwood forests punctuated by dramatic cliffs and pounding surf.

We had somehow missed out on our annual meeting up with Rudolf Schulz in Chile – he had just left when we arrived. So I was looking forward to today as we were meeting up at his brother Meinhard’s place in San Francisco. Rudolf must have been intimidated by the jam-packed event roller coaster that we had been on since arriving in California and had originally suggested visits to two botanical gardens and one private collection – while we had hoped for a day to chill out and catch up with various things. I had made one request – to photograph Dudleya farinosa in habitat, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Terry Hewitt had told me that the Dudleya in the centre of the Echeveria bed at Holly Gate had come from that location, so I thought that it would be nice if I could take a picture of its family members there. The weather forecast was not good, so after a beer and down loading and sending some emails, when the weather had cleared a bit, we set off.

S1254 is for pictures taken as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB), and at the vista site that gave a great view of Downtown San Francisco across the bay and the prison island of Alcatraz in the middle of the water. From here we spotted a road that went up the adjoining hillside that promised a good view of the bridge and a good natural setting for the Dudleya.

S1255 is for pictures taken at this location – a mix of scenic shots over the bay and D. farinosa growing on the rock wall facing the bay. The problem was that unless we had an array of mirrors, it was not possible to get both the Dud AND the Bridge in the same picture.

Scouting around Rudolf found a rock out crop that could be reached by driving on to a higher parking spot and then making our way down the steep hillside to the rocks (S1256). As we took in the scenery and looked for the best spot to look for plants, it became clear that there were three showers heading across the bay towards us. The light (or rather lack of it) became a challenge – impossible to get good depth of field on close up shots and the search for a plant in a suitable location for the double whammy shot became a more pressing challenge. In the event, I ‘staged’ the shot, just as other Cactus Explorers had done before me, by moving a rosette from the base of the rock, in deep shade, to the top of the rock outcrop with the GGB and bay in the background. I managed to fire off three shots before the rain, hail and sleet moved in. I had my shot, so didn’t hang around much more after that. Hope we didn’t catch a cold – Rudolf was just getting over the tail end of his.

Quite chilled, Eunice drove us to Sausalito, where, on the harbour, we found a small restaurant that served Clam Chowder, before returning to Meinhard’s for some wine and another quick internet session. Don’t forget to switch your firewall back on, Meinhard. Great, relaxing day – thanks Meinhard & Rudolf!

Eunice’s SatNav suggested that it would take an hour to get back to our lodgings at Joe and Eloise’s in Fremont. It took 1:45, due to traffic at rush hour, so that once again we arrived fashionably late. Dinner was ready and we enjoyed another fine evening of conversation, putting the world to rights on numerous issues, but, for a change, not cacti. The American hospitality continues to amaze us.

Tomorrow we head north, towards the Giant Redwoods.

During the last week, we had been amazed, but pleased with the inaccuracies of the US weather forecasts. But this is a huge country, made up of huge States with a huge number of micro-climates from hill top to valley, along the coast and inland. Rain had been forecast on most days, but by UK standards, only brief showers materialised. Today was different though – it poured when we got up and there only a few brief dry spells during which we made the most of beautiful scenery, more Dudleya, and some unusual wildlife never seen before on our cactus trips.

But first, we had to get a replacement for one of Eunice’s Toyota Landcruiser’s headlights, obviously not included in the performance of these indestructible cars. Next was a visit to the Pacific Ocean shores of Pismo that has a location where Monarch Butterflies congregate and lay their eggs. We stepped from the car into big puddles and in the rain hurried to the information centre – closed – then to the circuit. We found and photographed (S1246) one half drowned specimen, the only one we could find, then had enough and returned to the car, without actually having been to the bit of beach that has the concentration of these beautiful butterflies.

The weather showed no signs of easing up. Eunice and I had urgent emails to post and the damp weather made toilet visits more regular, so we found a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf bar with wifi to do our business in the hope that the weather would improve. It did, and we were finally heading north, along Highway 1, the scenic Pacific Cast road. Eunice had suggested a Dudleya stop at Morro Bay (S1247) and the name reminded me of the other Morro’s we had enjoyed in Brazil (Morro do Chapeu, in Brazil and Morro Copiapo and Morro Moreno in Chile. Unlike these hills, this one had a healthy tourist feel in a village based on shore opposite a Morro that rises out of the Ocean, creating the bay. We were able to drive to the base of the Morro and found a different Dudleya, D. blochmaniae growing in the rock debris that over the years had eroded from the rock. We could also now admire the other landmark of Morro Bay – the three chimneys of the local power station – a strange combination – the town planners and conservationists must have been on holiday when the decision was made to build these.  I chatted with a retired lady wielding a Canon camera with zoom lens who was interested to know what we were taking pictures of. Hearing our accents she was pleased to announce that she was English by birth (from Epping) but had lived in the USA since the age of 4. She also explained that the small crowd along the water’s edge, across the car park had gathered to admire the sea otters. These creatures have their home in the Californian kelp beds and feed on the clams and abalones that grow on the rocks below the water level. They bring the shells up, roll themselves into the kelp that act as an anchor, preventing them floating away and lie on their backs while devouring the contents of the shells, much to the saccharine of the local fisherman who can get good money for these shellfish. The otters are protected, but the fishermen’s jobs are not.

S1248 was another Dudleya Stop, at San Simeon – again D. sp. for now.

S1249, just past Hearst Castle, now open as a tourist attraction of not on our list of Points Of Interest, Terry Skillin had told us of a colony of Sea Elephants. And sure enough, there they were, littering the beach, protected by a barbed wire fence and a ranger, who reminded us that we could not climb over the fence as these animals, in their breeding season, were very dangerous. However, 3 miles farther along, there was a much larger, more accessible group, and so we moved on to the ‘real’ S1249.  These animals, especially the males, are huge, and fitted out with a rather large snout that gives them the name Elephant Seal, as it resembles a short elephant’s trunk.

We made four more brief stops, prompted by Dudleya spots and scenery:

• S1250 – Big Sur
• S1251 – Jade Cove
• S1252 – Lucia Lodge
• S1253 – Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Keeping up our record of ‘fashionably lateness’ we arrived some 10 minutes after the agreed time at the house of John Bleck, to admire his collection (S1243). This reflects his great all round knowledge of plants found in nature and horticulture – the diversity was fantastic compared to my 99% cactus collection. And his knowledge about each plant appeared as detailed as any specialist collector might have about their limited range of plants. John provided yet another example of the great hospitality that we were enjoying. Lots more invitations had been received for visits to private collections, gardens and nurseries, but there are only 24 hours in the day, even in California, and only 14 more days before we meet Alain for our Mexico adventure and we had more places to go and plants to see in nature before then.

S1244 is west of the small the town of Lompock. We had been told to look for Dudleyas near the railway station and sure enough, some 5 miles before we got there, we spotted them along the side of the road.

S1245 was the actual Amtrak Station, called Surf Beach, California. No surfers today – perhaps due to the inclement weather, strong winds and the ‘White Shark In Line Up’ notice on the notice board. Glottyphyllum sp. had been used to stabilise the sand dunes and seems to make a reasonable job of it. John Bleck had told us that studies had confirmed the South African origin of this yellow flowered plant and its pink and purple cultivars that escaped into nature here and in the other countries that we had visited in South America during this trip. It is a real threat to local endemic flora as it is tough as old boots and glad to squeeze endemic flora out of their natural niche habitats. The same is true for Eucalyptus that we have seen in nature in every country that we have visited since 1 November 2008.

We were invited back for another night at Terry & Rob Skillin’s and had another great evening with excellent food, wine and chat.