JOURNEYS

Statues of Rust in Wide Open Spaces

Visiting Anza-Borrego, the largest state park in the United States

There are certain images that come to mind when you think of California — granite Half Dome or misty Bridalvale Falls in Yosemite, the towering Redwood Forest and those mammoth sequoia trees. All one-of-a-kind.

Or some prefer coastal Big Sur, the epic views of Mt. Whitney and the Sierra Nevada mountains, or the beautiful Southern California beaches.

And then there are the deserts.

The deserts?!, did you say? Um… really?

When I first moved to California I certainly sought out those more typical National Park-level sights and they did not disappoint. But one of my partner’s favorite getaways is Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs. Two desert communities about two hours east of Los Angeles.

“The desert is so clean and beautiful,” he says. “I love the smell of it.”

Having grown up in the very green eastern United States, I personally had a much harder time seeing it that way.

Beautiful? I was dubious. Pretty?

Dusty and burnt out was more like it, to my naked eye.

Certainly unique.

But I prefer silver streams, epic granite mountains or green trees interspersed with red and orange earth like in Arizona or Utah.

Can the barren California desert actually be called beautiful?

It took a few visits, but I’m here to tell you I had a quick change of heart. The vast open spaces with towering mountains and clean lines really are a beauty all their own in the American West.

Eddie and I are major road-trippers, always looking for new Southern California destinations. We kept hearing rumblings of the beautiful wildflowers blooming in California’s largest state park, Anza-Borrego, which at 935 square miles, is also the largest state park in the entire nation, and so a Spring journey was quickly added to the calendar.

Sounds daunting. And it kind of is — Anza-Borrego is a 2.5-hr drive from Los Angeles (on a good day with zero traffic), and about an hour and 45 minute drive inland from San Diego.

Being April, the carpet of desert wildflowers made it worth it, also making us realize this was obviously not a place to be visiting anytime in the summer months, by choice.

But the unexpected treat was the public art displayed through part of the valley known as Galleta Meadows. Spread amidst the desert plains, with a gorgeous mountain backdrop, are over 130 metal public art statues.

Set amidst the wide open spaces, sometimes interspersed in the wildflowers too, you can find elephants, giant scorpions, battling big-horn sheep, horses, beetles and perhaps most stunning of all, a 350-foot prehistoric-looking sea-serpent dragon-snake that straddles both sides of the road!

We’re delighted and really can’t believe it.

As a rule we love art, but public art on such a grand scale is simply impressive. We ask questions and learn that the owner of the land commissioned artist Ricardo Breceda to add some pop to the landscape — and boy, did he ever.

And it’s in this moment that it’s solidified in my soul — the beauty of the desert — so much space, so much silence, and how these enormous metal sculptures can only shine and contrast with such a clean and stark backdrop, interplaying with all that negative space.

So, we breathe it in.

Memories and photographs with towering metal structures secured, we appreciate the smell of the creosote, begin a short hike through the rocky terrain and spend a few more moments with the wildflowers that often bring thousands of tourists every Spring.

Art. Flowers. A light breeze. Silence. Who could ask for more?

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