Ocotillo, Whats in a Name

I spent yesterday afternoon in the desert driving around. The desert is no joke. It is very unforgiving, just like the ocean. I need to be a little more respectful and not so flippant. I was driving along some real sandy road and all of a sudden the road ended and I was just in the middle of the desert. Not only is it illegal to not be on a clearly marked road, but I found it to be really uncomfortable. I had to get out of the car and see if I could find the road. Eventually I turned the car around and was able to backtrack where I had come from, but this was not as easy as you would think because for a while I was evidently on really hard pack and was not leaving tracks.

One of the interesting things is that there are 55 gallon drums marked AGUA spaced along roads and railroad tracks. Inside there are boxes with gallon containers of drinking water. This is for people who have come across the border and are trying to walk through the desert. But there are lots of stories about people who get their cars stuck as well.

On another note, the ocotillos have started to bloom. The ocotillo is a tall stringy cactus. They are usually all brown and dead looking. Like most of them were a few weeks ago when I got here. But we had a couple days of rain and two weeks of cooler temperatures and everything changed. They are now covered with small green leaves and have red flowers at the top. The desert above Ocotillo, the town, is covered with them.

People keep saying that we will have a desert bloom soon. This evidently is really cool. Well, hopefully we will see.