RHH's photos with the keyword: callifornia

Oak Glen, California, is a small apple-growing community in the San Bernardino Mountains. There is a preserve and botanical gardens in the area that we visited when in California in 2018. We hiked some of the trails in the preserve, mostly bird-watching.

This is, I believe, the Teddybear Cholla, a cactus that was just beginning to bloom when we hiked to Fortynine Palms Oasis in Joshua Tree National Park. In spite of its name it is not a plant one would want to hug. Pieces of it come off easily and attach themselves to shoes and shirts and are very difficult to detach. For that reasons it is sometimes called the Jumping Cactus.

This was one of the few ruined buildings that still remained in the ghost town of Ballarat west of Death Valley. The buildings were made of adobe and have crumbled away over the years.