Searching for Wildflowers

Our trip in AZ, CA, and NV in search of wildflowers started at our home in Green Valley, which is just south of Tucson, AZ. On our first day, we traveled mostly east to Yuma, AZ. We began seeing wildflowers as soon as we left Yuma heading north. We first saw a vibrant show of wildflowers in a valley between the Chocolate and Castle Dome Mountains. Yes, the chocolate Mountains were a beautiful chocolate color.

These small violet flowers were all along both sides of the road. I kept making Ali stop to take more pictures, especially because violet is my favorite color.

The orange flowers below are globe mallows. This is the most flowers I have seen on one plant. The ones that grow near our home have about a tenth of the flowers this plant had. Since globe mallow is one of the flowers I am planning to add to the Desert Beauties Quilt Series, finding plants with such an abundance of blooms was a blessing.

In this area, we also saw ocotillos which had red leaves instead of green ones. Not all of them were red, but quite a few. All the ocotillo that grow near our home have green leaves. I wonder if the red has something to do with the soil.

Then onto Death Valley. The ranger there told us that they were not having a good year for wildflowers. We did see some; but, not nearly as many we saw outside of Yuma! I have DH Ali, our tour guide, to thank for putting Yuma on our itinerary. Check out some of the beauties we did see in Death Valley.

Ali has always put the pictures we have taken on our journeys into slide shows. We have over 65 carousels of slides. Last year, he went digital. He combines our photos with text and music to make wonderful displays of our travels. Check out the title slide he made for this trip using three of the photos I took.