Images of the California Deserts

	A Horned Lizard At the Desert Tortoise preserve, I found this horned lizard, but no turtles.
	Amboy Crater Amboy Crater is a cinder cone less than 1000 years old. People tend not to realize that volcanic activity is not uncommon in the California deserts, and that a new volcano could errupt at any time. Paracutin, a volcano that formed in Mexico in the 1940's, could happen here.
	An Elephant Tree Anza Borrego State Park is the location of the elephant trees, a rare tree that is well adapted for the extremely arid environment.
	An Earless Lizard This lizard was watching my car when I hiked through the elephant trees.
	A Black-chinned Hummingbird Near the western entrance to the park, we saw this hummingbird feeding on the ocotillo.
	A Chuckwalla The chuckwalla is one of the largest lizards in North America, but is completely benign.
	Coopers' Hawk This hawk buzzed me when I stepped out of my hotel room in Blythe.
	Red-tailed Hawk America's most common buteo is the Red-tailed Hawk. These birds can be found perched next to fields and highways from Maine to California.

Trona The Trona Pinacles are similar to the Tufa at Mono Lake, but are much older.

	Union Pacific Riding that rail...
	Kelso Sand Dunes The Kelso sand dunes are up to 600 feet tall.

	Red Rock Canyon Red Rock Canyon State Park is on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, just north of Mojave. It's where the desert meets the mountains, and the rock formations are vibrant, particularly when the sun first hits them in the morning.
	150,000 My Explorer reached 150,000 miles.
	Trona Pinnacles The Trona Pinnacles are fascinating. They are old tufa (similar to the tufa at Mono Lake) but the lake has dried up and left a salt flat. So the pinnacles are now complete, and calcifying. In some of them, particularly from a distance, they look like dogs' teeth, but when you get closer, some of them are pretty big. Few people make it out to Trona, and few of them go to the pinnacles, they're not easily seen from paved roads and they are not well known.

	Desert Dandelion Desert Dandelions were the most common flower we saw.
	Unidentified Desert Flower I've not found an ID for this flower... yet.
	Desert Chicory Desert Chocory mixed with dandelions.
	Unidentified
	Desert View The desert view from Hole in the Rock.
	Hole in the Rock Hole in the Rock had some fantastic rock formations.
	Mesa A Distant Mesa. Note the different erosion rates.
	Hole in the Rock More Holes.
	Green Desert These mountains were green... Either they were about to bloom, or we just missed it.
	Yucca Flower Yucca flowers were pretty common.
	Joshua Tree Flower A flowering Joshua Tree

	Eagle Mountain Ghost Town Eagle Mountain used to be a mining town, and also a prison town, but was closed down in 2003. The ghost town is fenced off with a caretaker, in the hopes that it can become a town again.

Baker Thermometer The thermometer in Baker read 112 degrees.