That's just one of those SoCal things, tho it seems a little early yet. In
the really wet years (relatively anyway) the whole desert damn near turns
into a yellow carpet- and of course shortly after the vehicles are all
yellow with bug guts. It gets a little nuts; I once drove from here to
Mojave (about an hour) and by the time I got there I had to stop and clean
the goo off the windshield because it was getting hard to see.
A few years ago they had a huge bloom in Death Valley, which apparently only
happens once every few decades, and people came from around the world to see
it, including some listees, iirc.

Cya,
Robert

On 3/9/08, dhanson@gorge.net <dhanson@gorge.net> wrote:
>
> Last Sunday's LA and San Deigo newspapers must have run stories on the
> "Desert Wildflower Bloom".
> And people in those cities must be really hard-up to occupy themselves, or
> something.
> This weekend, our little desert town is SWAMPED with Lookie-Lous, driving
> around in their fancy
> city SUVs and motorhomes and standing out(breifly) in droves in the desert
> looking at wildflowers..
> Now, don't get me wrong, they are nice(the flowers)...but are they worth
> an overnight trip or a
> few hundred bucks worth of fuel and hours in bumper to bumper freeway
> traffic to come see?  Most
> flower-lookers find another crowd of stopped (usually double parked or
> blocking the road) vehicles
> and they all bail out(usually without checking if there is traffic,
> because they are in
> the "Wilderness"), spend a few minutes walking around in the sand, take
> some pics with cell phones
> and then they jump back in and head for fast food and home again, I guess.
> I did see a couple of "new" Vanagons, maybe some listers from SD or
> LA.  But So Cal tourists
> prefer much more fancy rides...Right here in the SD Branch Library parking
> lot I can see two
> Cayennes and a really fancy Rolls with what looks to be factory alloy
> wheels...The Rolls is
> HUGE...And there goes a white Westie with two bikes on the back...I'd take
> the Westie, myself,
> though you could probably make the Rolls into a pretty decent camper with
> some work...
> Don Hanson
>