Hole In The Rock Road

 On April 8th, we drove down the historic Hole In The Rock Road in the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument.  Besides great scenery, there were a couple of specific places we wanted to visit.

The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument visitor's center in Escalante, Utah.

Our first stop was an area of wonderful rock formations called Devil's Garden.

We came across this medium sized lizard.

This tree looked mostly dead, but still had some green leaves.

Further down the road was this large rock amphitheater called "Dance Hall Rock".  This location was used by the early Mormon settlers as a venue for social gatherings.

 

 

This shallow depression in the floor of the amphitheater appears to collect just enough moisture to allow a few plants to survive.

Bryce Canyon National Park - 2021

 After getting our second dose of the COVID vaccine, we started traveling again.  We spent a few days in Tropic, Utah, to revisit a couple of scenic drives in that area.

On April 7th, we drove to the end of the Bryce Canyon National Park road at Rainbow Point.  Below are some images from that drive.

Natural Bridge

(technically an arch)

The town of Tropic far below

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden - March 29, 2021

 We visited the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden with a couple of new friends on March 29th.    We hadn't enjoyed this special place since we had lived in the Santa Barbara area many years previously.

Blooming Black Sage near the entrance

The meadow area

Turtle sunning on a rock

Lovely blue Ceanothus blossoms

Hummingbird Sage

Chocolate Iris

A couple of unidentified plants

Figueroa Mountain Wildflowers - March 28, 2021

 One of our favorite locations for spring wildflowers is on Figueroa Mountain in the San Rafael Mountains of California.  Since we had been in this part of California much later than originally planned because of COVID-19, we decided to check this year's crop before leaving the area.  It had been a pretty dry winter, so we were not expecting too much, but wanted to see what might be blooming. The flowers turned out to be pretty sparse, but we did manage to find a few of the types commonly found.

We started our loop drive by driving out on Happy Canyon Road.  As we started climbing, we saw these Prickly Phlox.

Common in the chaparral of the foothills and lower mountains elevations are varieties of Ceanothus shrubs, many of which were blooming with many dense clusters of tiny off-white flowers.

We had been seeing small patches of California Poppies along the roads.

But the large dense fields of poppies found in some past years were very sparse this year and somewhat lost in the browning vegetation of this dry year.

These poppies blooming among cactus seemed symbolic of the drought.

Blue-eyed Grass

Bigelow's Coreopsis

Fiesta Flower

Chaparral Clematis

Interesting geology exposed in the road cut

Historically there have been small cinnabar mines operating in the San Rafael Mountains, all of which I believe are inactive.  This one seen from across the valley looks like a dumping ground of old equipment, including vehicles of various ages.

Bush Poppy

Indian Paintbrush

There were lots of Bush Lupine plants, but very few had any blooms.

Phacelia

Shooting Stars

The view across the Santa Ynez Valley with Cachuma Lake and the Santa Ynez Mountains forming the other side.  Santa Cruz Island in the Santa Barbara Channel is barely visible in the far distance.

Another view with San Miguel Island in the distance

Buttercups

Wallflower

Red Maids

One area that is often carpeted with Goldfields only had a very few.

We had almost given up finding any Johnny Jump-ups (wild pansy) when we found a patch near the bottom of the mountain.

Fiddleneck