Friday flowers…Joshua Tree spring

The decision to go through Joshua Tree turned out to be a beautiful choice, what I’d hoped for, and much more interesting than another drive along the whole stretch of Interstate 10. My dream was for wildflowers but I came in from the northwest, home to the Joshua trees for which the park is named in the Mojave Desert which is higher and cooler. As I drove farther, I descended into the Colorado desert, home to creosote, palo verde, ocotillo, ironwood, and other plants more like where we live in Arizona…and wildflowers. Both deserts are beautiful but the wildflowers are in the Colorado part of the park. There were drifts of flowers of all sorts but not like in Ohio, where the flowers nestled among grass. Here the flowers, although profuse, stand mostly alone. They were still breath-takingly, heart-achingly lovely. I felt the clutch in my heart around every curve.

“Wildflowers aren’t meant to be cut and tamed. They’re meant to be loved and admired.” – Anthony T. Hincks

“To those whom the tree, the birds, the wildflowers represent only locked-up dollars have never known or really seen these things.” – Edwin Way Teale

“Here’s the thing about wildflowers—they take root wherever they are, grow strong through the wind, rain, pain, sunshine, blue skies, and starless nights they dance, even when it seems there is nothing worth dancing for they bloom with or without you.” – Alisha Christensen