Desert Vacation

We spent a week in the desert of Southern California. The desert is not at all what I expected. It's full of hills, mountains, plants and wild life.

We stayed in La Quinta, CA which is one of the small desert towns around Palm Springs. Interestingly there are no La Quinta Hotels in La Quinta, CA. We stayed at a place called Casitas at Santa Rosa.

This is the view from our balcony.

Lost Palms Oasis Hike

Took a hike in the sothern part of Joshua Tree National Park to Lost Palms Oasis. I had never seen palms that had not been trimmed before.

This is a pretty typical landscape -- rocks and a little bit of sand

We were shuffling along the trail and we were amazed to see this jack rabbit.

Can you believe the size of his ears?

Saw lots of lizards too.

This is a Teddy Bear Cholla cactus. It is not soft or cuddly and should never ever be hugged under any circumstances....

Here's the oasis at the end of the trail ---

Anza Borrego Desert State Park

The desert in Anza Borrego is completely different than the Colorado Desert in Joshua Tree.

We started a hike to another oasis in Anza-Borrego.

We hiked through a canyon.

Scrambled around on some bolders.

We were hiking along and we saw something moving on the cliffs ahead of us. Other hikers? A Mountain Lion? Nope -- a herd of Big Horned Sheep. This one had a transmitter around it's neck, or maybe that was her iPod...

All in all we saw a herd of 13 sheep. They were grazing all around us.

And aparently were as curious about as as we were about them.

After hiking the valley and seeing all the sheep we finally came to the oasis.

Here's me at the oasis --- kinda give you an idea of the size

Joshua Tree National Park -- North Entrance

Joshua Tree is completely differnt on the north side than on on the south side (where the Lost Palms Oasis is). There was even a significant difference between the west and east entrances of the north side of the park. The west is flat plains filled with Joshua Trees as far as you can see. Giant boulder piles decorate the landscape.





We had a great time climbing on the rocks!

Hidden Valley

We took a short hike through Hidden Valley, which is a valley completely surrounded by boulders. The ground inside the ring of rocks is protected from the harsher elements of the desert and makes the land more fertile.




I was quite disappointed not to find a ranch dressing sales outlet at the end of the trail....

Ryan's Peak

The climb to Ryan's peak starts at about 3000 feet. In a short mile and a half trail, you climb another 2500 feet -- so basically its a 1.5 mile rock stair case. It was about 100 degrees out, but the view was worth it.

Keys Overlook

The northern part of the park is divided in half by a mountain range. Keys Overlook is a very nice view...

If you look closely a desert squirrel was also taking in the view....

And then checking us out.....

Jumbo Rocks

On the east side of the mountain range there are no Joshua Trees. There are lots of boulders and cactus though. Spent more time scrambling on the boulders.





Here's Brian in the eyeball of Skull Rock.


And me goofing around...

Palm Springs

Here's a shot of Palm Springs from the San Jacinto Mountains

Bread Head

Brian sat down to dinner tonight in front of the TV. He put his plate on a TV tray and reached for the remote - mind you he's still sitting in front of his tray and I am sitting right next to him. Indy walks up to the tray, takes his bread off his plate and just walks away with it! Indy! Not Niya! We were right there!

Maybe Niya has been taking the fall all this time for Indy! Poor Niya....

My How They've Grown...

Back in May I took these pictures of the litter of 6 pups that Fondren Five Star Kennels graciously took in. I have watched them grow over the last few months from fuzzy little lima beans to energetic puppies.

It's almost impossible to take their pictures, when you go in the room with them all the do is try to jump on you. So all you get are nose close ups...

It's hard to tell where one dog ends and another begins!

Now here we are in August -- Can you believe it's the same pups? It's like theire little pudgy bodies were stretched into something long and lean. They are still impossible to photograph as they won't stay still. Here I've thrown treats in a pile to get them in one spot.

This one is Rexi - He was the fuzziest and fattest. Now he's tall and handsome.

Here we are on the last day of obdience class Rexi is the second from the left. I think he grew 6 inches over the 6 weeks of class...

Murphy Brown

Here's my boy Murphy....

Isn't he GORGEOUS?!!

Who ate the cake??

So I bake a chocolate zuccini cake. I take it out of the oven and put on a rack to cool. I go upstairs to fold some laundry when I hear the phone ringing. I run down the stairs and Pick up the phone and see:

ACK! Half of my cake is GONE!!
NIYA!

Needless to say I hung up the phone. I can't believe she ate exactly half of the cake! Is it because she's polite or because she was caught just in time? We'll never know. For those keeping score:

Niya: 1073
Mom: 0

Maybe I should rename this site to Dumb Debbie and the Bad Doggies...

MS150 Houston - Austin

Every year I say I'm going to take more pictures during the ride, but you get so caught up in the momentum of getting up one hill and going down the next that you never seem to want to stop to take a picture!

Here we are at 6:00 am before the ride, my father-in-law Bruce, my husband Brian, my friend Michael, me (with my Axl Rose doo) and my friend Chip.

Here's the whole team -- I'm in the front row on the right.


Here's a typical rest stop... people munching on snacks and bikes everwhere...


And here's what you spend most of your time doing at the rest stop --- waiting in the potty line!


Goofing off at lunch.

One small hill .....



One flat area ....


Finish line in Austin 2:10 pm -- Bruce, me, Brian and Chip. Michael finished a few hours before us, but hey we didn't have $3000 triatholon bikes...


We always stay an extra night in Austin, usually somewhere nice with a jacuzzi -- Here's the view from our balcony


And we finish off the evening with dinner on the lake at the Oasis restaurant!