A new place to walk

My hubby and I took a walk/hike in a National Conservation Area near our home on Saturday. We took our dog along with us and I dare say, we all had a good time. We stretched our legs and enjoyed a windy, partially cloudy afternoon in our beloved desert. If that doesn't sound particularly appealing, consider the alternative-- an unrelentingly hot and sunburn-inducing, blindingly bright hike. So, like I was saying, the conditions were perfect.

I find cloudy days the ones that are the most interesting to photograph. As much as I love our sunny to rainy day ratio here, I appreciate the occasional storm front.

So, what did we find on our hike? Well, first off, there were incredible views of a variety of hills and mountains in a rainbow of colors. Proof:

Look at the greens, oranges, magenta, purples, blues, and yellow. I love our redrock out here, even if it means we have to amend our soil to grow a vegetable garden and there is an endless amount of red sand and dust tracked into the house. The inspiration I get out it is worth it.

Further on, we found Palmer's penstemon in bloom all over the place, as well as this flower:

Neither of us had seen this plant in bloom before, but after getting home I looked it up online. I did various searches using descriptive word combinations until I found it-- it being a Giant four o’clock (Mirabilis multiflora).

After walking along for a while and taking loads of photos on my other film cameras, I was rewarded with this golden field, fluffy clouds, and disappearing mountains:

Luckily, you can't look too closely at the "golden" in this picture, as it is mostly dried out weeds and cheatgrass. Luckily, there are a lot of happy native plants like sage and cacti and the aforementioned flowering species out there as well.

I really like this little slice of desert. My first visit was super short, and this one only made me want to come back for more. There are a quite a few more trails with interesting names to travel.

*All of the above photos were taken using my Polaroid SX70 Alpha camera, using PX 680 Beta film from The Impossible Project.