A carpet of Wildflowers in the Desert

Roses are red, violets are blue. The desert flowers are here waiting for you!

That’s right, the late winter weather may have killed a lot of the Washington, DC cherry blossoms, but the abundant rainfall has the desert in Southern California brimming with beautiful yellow wildflowers.

You’ve heard of the Super Moon—you know when the full moon is on its closest approach to us folks down here on earth. Well, this year we have a Super Bloom in our desert. Spring has sprung, and all those rainy days this year has the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park filled with colorful wildflowers.

Now, of course there’s a downside to all of this beauty: the tourists are jamming the highways and roads and packing the restaurants and shops. But if you are a flower-lover and a desert-dude, or dudess, you gotta make it over to the town of Borrego Springs to see this colorful canopy!

The Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is probably California’s largest park, and Borrego Springs—population about 1,500—has seen as many as 20,000 visitors during recent weekends.

Though the storeowners are struggling to keep their shelves full and their kitchens well stocked, they couldn’t be happier with the business boom. Of course, weekdays are not as busy and packed with tourists as the weekends.

How long have we been waiting for the Super Bloom? Some of the locals say the desert hasn’t been this colorful since the 1990s.

For more information, go to the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association web site: http://www.abdnha.org/index.html

But whatever you do, don’t miss this breathtaking show of colorful desert flowers!

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Great News for Hikers and Mountain Bikers

Okay, all you San Diego hikers and mountain bikers, are you ready for this? The famous Stowe Trail—yeah, the one you’ve been using illegally for many years—is going to be open to the public next month!

That’s right, the 3-1/2 mile trail that runs from the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar and connects to the Trans County Trail is opening up for one and all of you hardy folks!

Now, the exact date has not been set, and the trail is still a no-no because of ongoing negotiations between the U.S.  Navy Department and San Diego County officials, but it looks like a deal has almost been completed.

The Stowe Trail is located on the eastern portion of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and links the County’s Goodan Ranch and Sycamore Canyon Preserves to the north with Mission Trails Regional Park to the south.  The County and the Navy have been trying to negotiate this deal for more than 10 years.

You know: it takes a little while to work out complicated stuff like this!

Apparently, the deal will detail steps that each party will take before the property—some 200 acres of land—will be turned over the the County in exchange for “in-kind consideration equal to the value of the land conveyed.”

Hip, hip hooray! Let’s hear a big round of applause for the Navy and the County for working so long and so hard on this deal!

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Marine Corps Battle Color Ceremony

Hey, Semper Fi folks, both vets and fans, there’s a really big deal coming up in San Diego this week: the Marine Corps Battle Color Ceremony!

Of course where else could this great patriotic event take place? Sure, Camp Pendleton, Harbor Drive at Vandergrift Boulevard. Camp Pendleton was opened in 1942 as a Marine training base during World War II. It’s now the home of the First Marine Division.

The Ceremony is the annual Esprit de Corps, as part of a nationwide tour of the Battle Color Detachment, based in our nation’s capital. In addition to the ceremony at Camp Pendleton on March 9, there will also be events on March 10 at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and on March 11 at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at 1600 Henderson Avenue.

So, what can you expect at this fantastic ceremony? How about some precision drill marches and maneuvers, all carried out with patriotic music? You can also marvel at the 24-member rifle platoon as they perform breathtaking drills and rifle spins.

The event at Camp Pendleton is free and open to the public. It will start at 3:30 pm in the Camp Pendleton football stadium.  The ceremony on March 10 at the Marine Corps Air station will start at 3 pm and is open only to authorized military patrons.

The event on March 11 at the Recruit Depot is scheduled for 2:30 pm, and is open to the public.

For more info, go to http://www.marines.mil/

Comic-Con Badges Are Up for Grabs

   Well, believe it or not, Comic-Con fans, your big show is only four months away, and the much-coveted badges for the convention go on sale Saturday, March 11.

If you attended last year’s Comic-Con, rush down to the San Diego Convention Center and try to snatch a badge before it’s too late. Last year attendance was 100,000+. Some 55,000 badges will go on sale Saturday.

You will need first to retrieve your registration code from the Comic-Con website. You can purchase up to three badges, including one for yourself.

There will be a second badge sale later this spring for all comic book lovers, whether or not you attended last year’s big splurge.

Now for those of my thousands and thousands of followers (I wish!) who are not quite sure what Comic-Con really is, here is their official Mission Statement: “Comic-Con International: San Diego is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.”

The big show will be kicking off on July 20, with a preview night on Wednesday, July 19.

The prices this year are $60 per day for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and $40 for Sunday. Wednesday’s Preview Night badges are priced at $45.

Stay tuned for more Comic-Con stuff as we get closer to July!