Welp, still working on that new blog design…I’m so excited to show you soon though because this lady who’s working with me is doing some pretty cool stuff! But in the meantime, let’s talk really quick about what’s happening here in the desert:
NEW LIFE IN THE DESERT
New life like nobody’s business (appropriate for Easter week), because it’s been raining like nobody’s business.
This means SO MANY WILD FLOWERS right here in the desert.
And it’s enough to take your breath away I tell you!
Someone told me this is called a super-bloom, and I don’t even want to look it up to see if that’s the right terminology because I want to stick to it.
Super-blooms are awesomely beautiful!
In conjunction with this super-bloom phenomenon going on, we also have another phenomenon:
My brother Jonah and his family are right here in the desert along with the super-bloom.
And neither are around to stay.
I mean, blooms die off (it’s supposed to hit 97 degrees next week), and my brother and his clan are heading out after the school year (next month…boo!).
FLAT IRON HIKE
So we decided to take advantage of a cooler-weather day (before we hit close to triple digits next week) and we rearranged everything we had going on and went on a hike.
Not just your walk-in-the-park kind of hike, but the mother of all hikes here in the desert:
Flat Iron.
See that far off peak off in the distance that looks a little like the Flat Iron building in NYC? Yep, that’s where we were headed:
That thing is no joke.
But so worth it because:
SUPER-BLOOM.
And some of my favorites.
Pretty good bouldering to get up that thing:
View from the top:
Where we kind of re-thought that “cooler weather is a good idea” thing, because we were FREEZING up there!
Look at all that yellow down there…all FLOWERS!
These rock formations are some of my favorites:
Back down to more oxygen (ha!) for the flowers to breathe and thrive.
Yep, 100% worth it.
And that’s the story of my annual trek to hike Flat Iron for this year.
Thanks, Jo and Aja, for being my adventure partners.
Hi Shawni! Longtime reader of your blog and I was excited to see this post!! We’re from PA and planning a trip west in mid-June. We plan to do some hiking in AZ and CA and I’m really looking forward to it. What kind of hiking shoes do you wear for desert hiking? I’m guessing what you wear is different than what I wear to hike here in PA where it’s usually muddy, rocky and always cloudy. TIA for your input. 🙂
Would love to hear where they are going next! Back to Hawaii? Also, will you post about your nephew’s experience with your brother as a teacher? How has that been? I hope you’ll write more about that!
Yes! And a podcast in Josh, the super teacher please