December 25, 2011 - Christmas at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve

With nowhere to go on Christmas (and a lack of desire to celebrate it this year) my friend Jim and i decided to go hiking. He came over to the East Bay from SF and we decided on a place we have been wanting to check out for a while. 

The Black Diamond Regional Preserve is just south of Antioch, CA and is known around here for being a former mining site of coal. Those days are gone and now it is a preserved area which is important in this heavily populated area.

These photos show how dry it is this year. Typically a December hike around here would find the hills completely carpeted in green, but this year we really haven't gotten much rain until March.

This egret may look out of place but we are only a few miles south of the Sacramento River which drains into the Bay.

Info about the mining town that once stood here.

Manzanita trees are common in the East Bay. 

The cemetery where locals were buried when a town existed here.

November 29, 2011 - PHOENIX TRIP - California

Day 10 on the Phoenix Trip.

We stayed the night in Palm Desert, CA which is near Palm Springs, CA. Ayme once lived there and showed me around. We drove through it at night, so no pics, but i have meager few during the next day as we were leaving.

Off I-10 in the Palm Springs area is a huuuuuge windmill farm. The biggest one i've ever seen.

The main goal of coming down here was to visit Joshua Tree National Park. I have seen many Joshua Trees, but this park blew me away! The eeriness and surreal landscape has to be seen to be believed. We only drove through it and stopped when we felt inspired, but we are in agreement that we want to go back and camp there and spend more time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Tree_National_Park

The trees are much bigger here than elsewhere and actually resemble forests at times. It vaguely reminded me of the Serengeti in Africa.

Joshua Tree N.P. is where the Mojave desert and the Colorado Desert meet. This photo shows the transition zone between the higher Mojave and the lower Colorado.

The Cholla forest.

The Colorado Desert part of the park isn't as scenic but beautiful nonetheless. At this point i think we were tired to the driving. No more pics of Joshua Tree.