I’ve been bookmarking sites using del.icio.us. It is great to use when you are working from different workstations or out of town. Let’s see if I can see my tagroll as a cloud.
Itinerary on Google Maps
Pauline posted about the moderators traveling this summer and listed a link to this blog. I guess I need to start keeping it up.
I now have my itinerary on a google map. It is so cool. I mentioned to Pauline that I wanted to try to do this and she said she could do it on Slow Travel. I just had to get the latitude coordinates and create an xml file.
I have all our planned stops on the map. I hope to put more details such as the parks we want to visit. But for now it is just the towns we plan to stay in. Full screen is best viewing and scroll town a bit to see all the spots.
Itinerary
We sat down and worked out most of our itinerary. Here is what I’m starting with
Sept 24 – overnight in Sydney
Sept 25 to Sept 28 – Perth
Sept 29 – Jurien Bay or Cervantes
Sept 30 to Oct 1 – Kalbarri
Oct 2 – Dalwallinu
Oct 3 – Narrogin
Oct 4 to Oct 6 – Albany
Oct 7 to Oct 10 – Margaret River
Oct 11 to Oct 15 – Sydney
We were not going to go North at first but after reviewing several wildflower tours we decided to go up. The area between Jurien Bay and Kalbarri is supposed to be great for wildflowers but it all depends upon the rain. So far, the winter rains have not come to Western Australia and we may not be able to see the fields of flowers. Oh well, we still may be able to see some of the more perennial flowers and shrubs.
Australia Bound
It is such a rush to purchase tickets for a trip. It feels like you are walking to the edge of the high diving board and jumping. And doesn’t the water feel great once you have jumped in?
We have decided to go to Australia this year. It took a long time to decide just where we wanted to go. We went to many tempting slide presentations at Wide World Books. Bhutan? Turkey? Balkans? We thought about NYC or Rome since G hasn’t been to either city. But just a couple of weeks ago, G was reading one of his plant books and came across a map of the Mediterranean plant regions of the world. It turned out that we have been to four of the five regions, California, Chile, Southern Europe and South Africa. There was one region left, Western Australia. That started us down the path to Perth.
The more and more that we read, we realized it would be perfect for our interests. And it would fit in the time we wanted to travel, late September – Early October.
We spent last week discussing and debating how to organize our trip. At first, we were going to only focus on the Southwestern corner but the more and more we read, we realized that we should do a loop going north a bit and then down south.
After two weeks in Western Australia, we’ll return to Sydney for a few days of sightseeing in Sydney.
Now to start booking accommodations.
Esmeralda Basin
We finally got a chance to make it back up Esmeralda Basin. It has been several years and our last trip was in the fall. It has a great spring bloom.
It was the usual 2.5 hour drive from Seattle to the trailhead. The road up the Teanaway is very good but we got stuck behind a horse trailer and it was slow and dusty. Cough… Cough…
The parking lot was pretty full but it is shared with the Ingalls Lake and Long Pass trails. We saw few people on the trail.
The trail starts in the woods and after 1/4 mile it passes the trail to Ingalls Lake. Shortly after the junction, we crossed some of the many side streams and started seeing wildflowers. At first, it was mainly penstemon, lewisia and delphenium. Gorgeous blue delpheniums.
A bit further, we came across one of the great meadows along the trail. It was filled with just past shooting stars and just starting to bloom Elephant Heads. We had some nice views of the surrounding peaks. Farther along, the steam followed the trail and looking closely along the mossy edges we found a native sundew. It is always great to find native insectivorous plants.
We continued on and emerged out of the tree into the rocky serpentine area. The scarlet gila was just starting to bloom. We stopped for lunch under the shade of a low pine.
The trail continued up and re-entered the trees. Here we came across amazing slopes of shooting stars among the streams. We could see the saddle of Fortune Pass above but first the trail would make a couple of wide switch back up the slope gaining us more views down the basin.
After about 2 hours we made the pass. Here among the silvered snags we looked out over the Alpine Lakes wilderness and Mt. Daniel in the distance.
A quick trip down and it was out for burgers in Cle Elum before heading home.
Some shots from Flickr
Meadow along Esmeralda Basin Trail
Butterwort – Pinguicula vulgaris
View down Esmeralda Basin
Fortune Pass
Beezley Canyon Preserve
We finally got a chance to get out and check out the in Eastern Washington flowers. The heat pushed the blooms and most of the flowers were past. 90 degrees in Quincy in May and the flowers are not going to last long.
We headed off over Snoqualmie Pass. It was 50 degrees at the pass so we knew it was going to be hot. Our first stop was Hayward Road and we pulled off at Cle Elum and headed towards Hwy 10. Along the way the lupine and balsamroot was in full bloom. We turned off on Hayward Road and found lots of Douglas’s Triteleia, Penstemon in addition to balsamroot.
Then it was off to Quincy. We joined I90 at Ellensburg and headed toward Vantage. Just before we got to Vantage, we notice that there was a different blue/purple flower on the hillsides. The purple sage – Salvia dorrii was in bloom. We pulled off at Vantage and headed towards Wanapum dam. We found it right off in full bloom. Stunning!
Back on the road, next stop was Beezley Canyon Preserve. We had hoped that there might be a few hedgehog cactus still in bloom but no luck. We found a lot of the cactus plants but the blooms were past. The bitterroot almost made up for it.
We decide to make a loop out of it and headed towards Wenatchee and Stevens Pass. The lupine and balsamroot were in full bloom from Peshastin up the pass. The river as reported was running high and wild through Tumwater Canyon. Along the wall we saw a few plants of Lewisia Tweedii.
Here are some additional photos from my flickr collection:
Return from California
Well, it has been another successful trip to Cali both for visiting our family and purchasing stock plants. It was a quick flight and drive into the valley. It was hot especially for May. It was over 90 degrees and we loved it. We spent a two lazy days visiting including a great get together on Thursday night. We had 4 generations for pizza. Everyone from grandma down to the great-grandchildren. Lots of fun.
Friday, we spent a long but enjoyable day. I didn’t really calculate the timing but it all worked out. We left around 9am and drove the backroads over the Altamont to San Jose. What a beautiful drive. We meandered along the Del Puerto Canyon road for about 3 hours spotting some nice wildflowers. G was pretty estatic to find a new milkweed. We were at the junction around noon and realized we needed to get going to make it by 3pm to Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, the best flowers were on this section of the drive. Lots of lupine and Chinese houses. But we couldn’t stop.
We made it to San Jose by 1:30 which actually was what was estimated – 4 hours from Stockton to SJ. Fortunately, the traffic wasn’t bad on Hwy 17 and we pulled into the parking lot at Cabrillo at 2:30pm. We didn’t get a chance to stop for lunch. Thankfully, we had some snacks along but we were starved.
We paid our membership and got in line. It wasn’t long until 3pm and the gates opened. We grabbed a red wagon and went in search of salvias on our list. We were with a lot of other ‘salvia collectors’.
We spent about an hours looking over the selection, talking to the growers and running into other salvia enthusiasts. We saw Betsy and Genny who are always good to see.
We spent a bit going through the garden and seeing what had survived and was in bloom. It is always interesting to see that even in Santa Cruz, some salivas will not survive the winter.
Around 5pm, we left. Unfortunately, the traffic was a bear. It took us forever to get to Gilroy and we didn’t make it back to the valley until 8:30. We called Mom once we were in the valley so they could go ahead and eat.
Long long day but fruitful. We spent Saturday packing and everything made it back.
Cabrillo College Salvia Sale 2006
Well, it is time to make our annual run down to California Mother’s Day. As usual, we will drop by the Cabrillo Plant Sale. G is reviewing the list to see what he wants to purchase. I’ve been researching what we might want to do on the way over on Friday. G’s sister told us about Del Puerto Canyon. The road goes from Patterson to San Jose and looks like a perfect place to check out wildflowers. It is also a great birding location.
We will do our usual and take down our trusty hard sided Samsonite luggage to pack all our plants. G has to be back to work Mother’s Day but we will get a chance to visit one or two days before.
Washington Desert in Bloom
We have our own desert here in the state of Washington. You may not think of Washington as a desert state but the Columbia Basin area of Eastern Washington is a high desert. It is a favorite place for us to roam in the Spring and enjoy the wildflowers.
The wildflowers this year are going to be great. It has been an above-normal year in rainfall. We have also had a colder year so Spring is coming slowly. We had hoped to get out last weekend but it was rainy and cold. It even snowed down to 2,000ft!
But we knew it was time to go so even the rain couldn’t stop us. I knew from the reports on NW Hikers Forum that the bloom was running about two weeks behind. G won’t be able to get out the next few weeks because ofSmartyplants plant sales so it was now or wait.
We decided on Vantage area because it was lower in elevation and we wanted to try to find Salvia dorrii. A little googling for where it occured and I found it listed on Turner Photographics as being located in the area. The backcountry hike at Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Vantage would give us a chance to check it out along with views of the Columbia. I highly recommend Best Desert Hikes: Washington for planning.
After tangling with traffic, we made it to Ellensburg by 10:30am. We decided to drive out the backroad on Vantage Highway to see what might be happening at Whiskey Dick also. We had seen some great wildflowers there in April 1998. I don’t know how much longer we will be able to find flowers in this region because PSE is building a wind farm.
We didn’t see many flowers until we got to the interpretive trail in the park and boy what flowers! The arrow-leaf balsamroot was in full bloom waving in the wind. It was surrounded by large clumbs of showy phlox which perfumed the air. It was intoxicating. We went on to the trailhead for the backcountry. It was a little scary having to walk up the canyon through the black basalt rocks knowing it was a prime location for rattlesnakes. We keep our hiking sticks poised and made lots of noise. It is still too cold.
At the top of the bluff we were treated to a spectacular desert garden and gorgeous views of the river at our feet. We meandered shooting photos and investigating. It was hard to go back. We’re going back in a couple of weeks to see the cactus.
Here are some pictures from flickr:
Arrowleaf Balsamroot overlooking the Columbia River
Showy Phlox (Phlox speciosa)
Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)
SmartyPlants Nursery
I spent sometime this weekend setting up a webpage for G’s nursery, SmartyPlants. For now, I just wanted a basic page that lists where he will be selling this year. We need to come up with a full layout of what he wants to cover on the site. I know we will want to have pictures and some basic cultural information. So more to come but for now here it is:SmartyPlants Nursery.