All that rain that has had California awash in mudslides this past winter has resulted in a wash of a vastly different nature out in the deserts east of Los Angeles. These areas are awash in wildflower carpets that local residents are describing as the bloom of the century. Having had the good fortune to be on a short vacation in the area in early March with my wife, Candy, and having a day to spare, I felt we simply could not pass up something that was well, the anything "of the century." We’d rented a Nissan Altima from Hertz with its Neverlost global position system (you can’t get enough help negotiating those twisted spaghetti strands of freeways in LA and environs) and we felt, what the hell, let’s put a few miles on this thing and see where it takes us.

A quick study of a printed map revealed an almost perfect boxed route with Los Angeles in the northwest corner, Joshua Tree National Park in the northeast corner and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in the southeast. There was just an empty space in the southwest and San Juan Capistrano, while having nothing to do with desert blooms, was crying out to fill the hole. A calculation of the total mileage put it somewhere around 500 -- a long day of driving, but doable.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitors Center

We had a very early breakfast at a Denny’s in Santa Monica, not far from our hotel (the Neverlost found it for us), then headed for San Juan Capistrano about 55 miles south. For those who have any knowledge of the mission here, it is most likely a result of stories about the return of the swallows each year around March 19. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember a song about the subject. The story of the swallows is a topsy turvy one. The mission was established in the area by Padre Junipero Serra in 1776, to create a place for worshippers about midway between the missions of San Diego to the south and San Gabriel in the north. With the completion of construction on the great stone church in 1806, and the attendant facilities that were added to house church dignitaries, monks and other staff, a business community and residential structures grew around the mission. 

The swallows were summer residents of the area long before there was any semblance of civilization. If they noticed at all by the intruding population of humans, they were considered dirty nuisances and their nests destroyed. Legend has it that one of the early padres invited the birds to take up residence at the mission where there was "room for all." They have been returning ever since. While the story is a romantic one, migratory patterns such as this are common among bird species. However, the near precise return of the swallows every year, after their month-long, 7,500-mile journey from their wintering roosts in eastern Argentina to a place of worship does have the ring of the miraculous about it. It is cause for celebration, locally, and has attracted visitors from around the world. 

The Mission at San Juan Capistrano

While the principal stone church was destroyed by an earthquake barely six years after its completion and was never rebuilt, the stone walls of the ruined church form a dramatic backdrop to views from almost anywhere on the grounds. The complex today includes smaller chapels and other support buildings and beautiful landscaping throughout. Under the kind of bright blue sky we experienced, the pale, sandy-colored walls of the buildings, the trickling waters of fountains, the bold cast-iron bells, the numerous flowering shrubs and almost garishly colored smaller plants made for a visual palette that seemed a fitting man-made intro to the desert blooms we anticipated lay ahead. Orange trees were laden with fruit. Calla lilies were stark white accents against red-brick walls or weathered wooden doors. Beavertail cacti were dotted with deep pink blooms. The sheer beauty of the mission and its surroundings make it well worth the trip from LA, whether you are proceeding on from there or just looking for a ride to a very pleasant setting.

Word we’d gotten was that the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was a little-known gem of dramatic mountain vistas and, now, blazing desert blooms. We headed south down U.S. 5 to Carlsbad then east on California 78 toward the park, a leg of about 140 miles. The road is stretches of varying wooded or dry terrain, with only the occasional splashes of wildflower yellows to whet the appetite.

Only small towns are spotted along the route and we felt a bit of home cooking at a non-chain restaurant would be ideal for lunch. We knew we’d found it in the small town of Santa Ysabel, when we spied the The Apple Country Restaurant sitting next door to a bakery. The place was packed and the wait staff was bringing out hearty looking meals on overflowing trays.

"Not the place to eat," our waiter said, when I’d remarked about someone on a diet. The overstuffed sandwiches of shredded pork in barbecue sauce were wonderful, but the list of pies on the dessert menu were calling. Warm slices of a pie with a filling of raspberries, boysenberries, strawberries and apple in a crumbly crust from the adjacent bakery topped with a giant scoop of vanilla ice-cream made this the perfect way station on the route to the desert.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

As you approach Anza-Borrego, there is a sense of vastness. At more than 600,000 acres, this is the largest state park in the lower 48. The road begins to rise through a series of lazy, switchbacks that become more precipitous as you get into the park. The driving is somewhat demanding, made more complicated by the ever-more-breathtaking views off the sides of the road. Fortunately, there is a series of pull-offs that open onto magnificent views of a valley, beneath slopes strewn with building-size boulders, all of it framed in a foreground of dusty yellow desert cassia and brittlebush, with occasional splashes of the near-purple blues of wild heliotrope. The scenes made for point-your-camera-in-any-direction photographs. 

You descend out of the Peninsular Mountains into Borrego Palm Canyon where the park’s visitor center sits at the edge of the town of Borrego Springs. The flat plain that surrounds the center was ablaze in color, displayed by a range of plants in many sizes and shapes: skinny chuparosa with its tubular crimson flowers; tall, thin ocotillo with its thorny stems of blazing reds; barrel cactus with its orangy blooms; chinch weed with its delicate, yellow flowers; thistle sage in dense lavender; the whites of prickly poppy and desert chicory.

With the afternoon light now firmly in place and the realization that we were still in the foreshortened days of the waning winter, we headed north for the 140-mile leg along California 86 toward Joshua Tree National Park. Stretches along this route, north of Ocotillo Wells are among the most barren in the west. Signs warn you to turn off your AC so as not to overheat your engine, so, damn, it must get really hot here in midsummer. But for this day it was high 60s and the sunshine felt exquisite. But the tranquility was disrupted by dozens of off-roaders, mostly teenagers and young adults, ripping across well-worn paths in the bleak landscape, riding all manner of vehicles with two, three or four wheels. Their play zones came to a near-abrupt end in vast stretches of greenery, commercial operations featuring stands of palm, orange groves, vineyards, truck gardens; irrigation ditches and overhead pipes going full bore. As we entered the city limits of Coachella, a huge Trump Casino loomed to our right. The parking lot was packed. The thought of losing myself in the desert had an increased appeal.

Joshua Tree National Park takes its name from a variety of yucca that grows in the desert areas of the southwest in higher altitudes, from 2,000 to 4,000 feet. It gets the "tree" surname from its height, which can reach 40 feet. It carries its spikey-leafed yucca leaves like a many-armed cheerleader holding pompoms. The creamy blossoms had just begun to bloom in this abnormally early spring and they added a dash of white to the darkening skies, but it was the carpet of wildflowers that truly left us agape. The individual clumps that we’d seen at Anza-Borrego were now great swaths of alternating color that stretched to the distant mountains, the peaks now the only elements of the landscape still lit by the lowering sun. Occasional shafts of light filtered through the thin high clouds to provide just enough illumination for us to take photos. This flat light actually enhanced the pallet that lay before us because it didn’t wash certain colors at the expense of others. There were carpets of yellow desert sunflower, desert dandelion and little gold poppy;fields of lavender thistle sage and wild heliotrope; dots of barrel cactus here and there with their orange blooms; flashes of magenta cups on the flat paddles of beavertail cactus; accents of white ghost flower. And all of it stretched to purple mountains with brush strokes of dark-gray shadow alternating with dusty-orange bands of sunshine. The bloom of the century, indeed.

As we headed west on U.S. 10 for the 160-mile haul back to Los Angeles, the sun had fallen completely behind the mountains, leaving the sky that deepening red so dramatic at the close of a day like this. As we approached the San Gorgonio Pass in the San Bernardino Mountains near Palm Springs, an eerie collection of silhouettes appeared against the darkening sky. Giant mechanical flowers, their heads slowly rotating in the evening breezes. These were components of the windmill farm -- 4,000 of them, 150 feet tall -- that provide electrical power for Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley. The weird, futuristic sight was oddly comforting as an alternative form of energy after a day of bonding with the natural world.

The next day we decided there was one more collection of flowers we wanted to see before leaving LA. We knew the J. Paul Getty Museum was the owner of "Irises," Vincent Van Gogh’s magnificent study, painted in 1889, after he had checked himself into an asylum in Saint Remy France post bouts of self-mutilation and hospitalization. I’d read that the painting had been purchased by the Getty for an undisclosed sum. On the other hand, it was clear the cost had to be in the 10s of millions, since the museum bought it after the owner had defaulted on a $30 million loan he’d taken after he’d won it at a Sotheby’s auction.

J. Paul Getty Museum

The Getty sits high on a hillside, with killer views of the Los Angeles area and its skylines. It is an ultramodern, blanched-stone and glass affair, with fountains and shallow pools, green grass areas, even a cactus garden that seems almost suspended in air at the edge of a precipitous hillside. "Irises" did not disappoint, its deep blues, soft greens and splashes of orange a reminder of the previous day’s natural beauties and the abilities of an artistic genius to interpret them in such a stunning way.

The museum offers a range of genres and periods, including wonderful examples of the Dutch 18th century school that also produced brilliant interpretations of flowers like Jan van Huysum’s amazingly detailed vases filled with a variety of flowers, sometimes draped in cascading bunches of fruit.

The desert blooms can last into June and are well worth a long weekend in southern California. Add a trip to the Getty, a walk along the Santa Monica Pier, star-watching at trendy restaurants in Beverly Hills, a stroll reading star names along the Walk of Fame, all of it draped in that 70-degree sunshine and it’ll make you forget those snowdrifts and biting cold of the recently departed winter.