California Official Visitor's Guide 2009 - UK - (Page 24) romancing the desert A romantic escape means reducing the world to just two people. Where better to do that than the desert? At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, you’re surrounded by 600,000 acres of, well, almost nothing. But the nothing that is there is truly spectacular and it offers the perfect framework for romance. The desert guarantees you and your partner enough space and time to gaze into one another’s eyes, while the crystal-clear night sky above supplies mood-enhancing starlight. Imagine standing on a carpet of white dune primroses on the desert floor. The bright, clear desert light can make you see one another in a fresh new light. Every twig on a desert-hard creosote bush stands out; every stony grain on the surface of a boulder looks sharp and clean. Walk together up Borrego Palm Canyon, and stroll past thorny ocotillos to an oasis of fan palms whose trunks, sheathed in skirts of fronds, resemble Hawaiian hula dancers. Why remote and wild Anza-Borrego makes the perfect getaway Beyond the beautiful and romantic scenery, Anza-Borrego has a wild side. An unexpected number of living things survive in this desert, including 60 different mammals and 225 species of birds. Desert bighorn sheep live high in the canyon—hard to see, because they no doubt saw you first. Another lucky sight: endangered pupfish, tiny pond dwellers dating back to the Ice Age, so adaptable that they can live at temperatures from near freezing to 108°F/42°C. La Casa del Zorro Desert solitude—and spectacular beauty Anza-Borrego is a realm of raw grit, rocky summits and canyons carved out by centuries of rainfall (reminders that thousands of years ago there was a vast lake here). A great way to explore is via Erosion Road, where you can see the huge scale of the desert: alluvial fans spreading from mountain ranges to the desert floor and Font’s Point, where you can put your arms around each other and watch the sunset over the Borrego Badlands. There’s a very good chance you’ll be the only ones there. Another must-see is Borrego Springs, more or less in the middle of the park: a funky town with so little traffic that you could easily lie down on the main road and not get hit. An influx of visitors nicknamed “snowbirds” heads down from colder climates in winter to enjoy the balmy desert temperatures and to play golf on several courses—bright patches of green in the immense sand trap of Anza-Borrego. You can also 24 www.visitcalifornia.co.uk lAurA FlIPPEn (All) http://www.visitcalifornia.co.uk
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.