Fighting Dinosaurs, Galleta Meadows, Borrego Springs, CA
Our first stop was Borrego Springs, CA, a community of less than 2,000 year-round residents that is completely surrounded by Anza Borrego Desert State Park, the largest state park in California.
Between 2008 and 2012, philanthropist Dennis Avery commissioned artist Ricardo Breceda to design and build the 131 metal sculptures of dinosaurs and other creatures, many based on species that had once roamed Borrego Springs and other parts of Southern California. They remain scattered around the properties he owned in Borrego Valley, which he called Galleta Meadows. Avery was heir to the fortune from the Avery Dennison Corporation (formerly the Avery Adhesive Label Corporation) and died in 2012. He and his wife lived in Borrego Springs, 90 miles from San Diego, where he had worked for the city attorney’s office as one of its first consumer fraud attorneys.
The fighting dinosaurs depicted in this sculpture, Allosaurus (left) and Carnotaurus (right) never actually encountered one another. Allosaurus lived in the Jurassic period and inhabited Africa, Europe and North America. Carnotaurus lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous period.
On The Road, Summer 2022
We live in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, so when the temperatures consistently reach triple digits, we migrate and explore.
There is very little that is random on our itineraries since we strive to reach select wilderness destinations in the best light for photography. Coastal hikes often require low tides that correlate with sunrise or sunset and inland hikes to natural arches, waterfalls and other destinations that require long drives or hikes, often require pre-dawn departures to reach destinations before the light becomes too harsh and the temperatures too hot.
Even then, as Joni Michell wrote and Judy Collins first recorded, there are those pesky clouds:
“But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way.”
In mid-June, we headed west to the Colorado Desert in southern California, then up the California coast before cutting inland to Pinnacles National Park and Mt. Shasta. From there, we traveled across southern Oregon before dropping down into southeast Idaho, northeast Utah and across to western Colorado for a week in the Fruita area. Afterwards we stopped in Boulder, Denver, Littleton and Del Norte, Colorado before heading into New Mexico where we made stops in Taos, Las Vegas, Abiquiu and Counselor before crossing back into Arizona, and arriving home.
Details are within the slide shows, but thanks to our friends and relatives: Libby, Sarah and Jason, Jim, Guy and Lisa, Steven, Bonnie and Myra, Karen and David, Marilyn and Joel, David and Judy, Ross, Kate and Greg, Bob and Carol, another Carol and Peter who fed us, housed us, hiked with us and guided us. We loved spending time with you all.
