picnic on another planet
March 24th, 2009
Monday, we came up to the high desert to visit my good friend Deborah and her kids. Annalie and I had not seen them since last August when we went to Sea World with them and then went to their house for a short visit. (Not sure how that happened, that we only live four hours apart and yet seven months went by between times. Life is busy, time flies, etc.) My mom hadn’t seen them in over a year, since Deborah and her family moved from Maryland to California. It’s been a great visit for the grown-ups and the kids.
Today we did something really fun. We had a picnic at the Trona Pinnacles! Being there almost feels like being on another planet, with the weird rock formations and the wide stretches of empty desert. Sci-fi movies and TV shows have filmed scenes there, and it was easy to see why.
Can you even see the car and the kids in these photos? They are so teeny-tiny compared to the landscape and the rocks towering above them.
During summer the temperature in this part of California can easily rise to 120 F, and out there, shade is scarce. On windy days the wind whips across the flat terrain and blows dust and sand everywhere. Today it was sunny but not hot, the sky was clear and there was a slight refreshing breeze. It was pretty much perfect weather for exploring the pinnacles.
The kids had a blast running all over and climbing up some of the smaller rocks. Christian especially was a fearless climber, though once he climbed a little too high and wasn’t sure how to get back down a steep slope. I climbed up and helped him down a few feet, and then he was fine. He was a little more cautious for the rest of the afternoon.
We had a picnic lunch (that we didn’t bother to photograph because we were all too busy eating) next to a spire that looked kind of like a gorilla. The kids played in the sand for a while. Deborah and my mom and I sat in the folding chairs we’d brought and drank our Diet Cokes.
Because of all the rain last winter, the desert is really blooming like crazy this spring. The usually-brown mountains were tinged green, and everywhere we looked we could see patches of yellow and purple and white flowers.
It’s probably illegal or at least frowned upon to pick flowers from a National Conservation Area, but we picked some anyway.
I don’t know what these yellow flowers are, but they smelled surprisingly sweet.
After a couple of hours, we’d had our fill of sun and dirt and flowers and pinnacles. We packed up our sand toys, piled in the dust-covered minivan and drove five miles on dirt and gravel roads to get back to the highway.
More photos in the set Trona Pinnacles on Flickr.
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Looks like a BLAST! I can definitely see why they’d film there!
The landscape really does make me think that you should all be wearing silver spacesuits.
wow, what a cool place! It definitely looks like another planet! It must be doubly weird to be out there standing by these things. Cool!
That looks great! I am definitely adding it to our list of good day trips. And sometime we will take you to Vasquez Rocks.
I love places like this. I used to get kind of upset when people would comment to me that the desert is “so ugly” and “looks so dead”. I find it kind of beautiful… I love nature in all forms though!
I definitely want to see this place!
The desert can be amazing…When you go, you think it’s barren. Not so, it’s amazing what life can do in the harshest environment.
Just don’t go there in August!
Great pics as always, B!
Thos first pictures of the desert were “spooky” . When you included the kids and the flowers, it softened up considerably.
Thanks for the tour.
~Mad(elyn) in Alabama
What a cool location!! And love the photos, per usual.
Oh wow!! That looks incredible. I went to Iceland recently and thought that landscape was spacey, but this is just mad!
(Hello btw… new stumbler here, love your blog!)
I pop in from Sydney, Australia via Google Reader every now and then… I love your Blog and your great photos but these shots had me going straight to Google Maps. Wow! what an amazing place California is, we know the coast road from SF to LA having driven it a few times and have lived in Carmel but we haven’t seen a lot of the Desert.
Thank you for those. cheers Pennie
Paul was reading over my shoulder and knew exactly where this place is, he’s been there a couple of times. He loves the area and was even telling me about the movies that have been filmed there (just like you said).
Have never been to the desert, but it sure looks like a cool place to go for a day trip. The flowers are beautiful.
Your post reminds me of something that happened when we were camping when I was a kid. We had just pulled in to a campsite in a national park and I noticed a very pretty bouquet of wildflowers sitting on a stump on our site. I picked them up to admire them, and wouldn’t you know – about 10 seconds later a park ranger walks by. She sees me holding the wildflowers, stops, and proceeds to give us all a lecture titled “We Do NOT Pick the Flowers”. I can just imagine that my mother was thinking the ranger would never believe her if she told her I didn’t pick them.
Anyway – you stirred a memory. I enjoy your blog.