I was looking to see if G+ had built a "Story" for the trip +Lori Hibbett and I made to Anza-Borrego in March 2012 when we met +Lori Carey, +Elena Northroup, +John H. Moore, +J. Rae Chip, +Angela Andrieux, +Tony Payne, +Cat Evans, +Ron Niebrugge and others (+Kimber The Dog):
https://plus.google.com/103466773231418285796/posts
I found a G+ Story from our visit from 2011 instead, when we met +Richard Bitonti and +Tom Grubbe. We meet such cool people over the years through photography!
I encountered better wildflower blooms in Anza-Borrego in 2008 and 2009 (https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Anza%20Borrego&sort=interestingness-desc&user_id=23183960%40N00), but I was travelling in an AWD minivan back then, so we found much cooler locations in the park in 20ll and 2012 after I swapped the van for an 4WD SUV and we could explore more of the park.
I ran across this 2011 trip while wrapping up the Imperial Sand Dunes section for my guidebook yesterday. So many of the photos are turning out a lot better re-edited with the newer "2012 process" now available in +Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.
I think that this Story feature could be really useful, but I couldn't get it to "see" some new edits or photos I uploaded for Imperial Sand Dunes, so I simply have to apologize in advance for some of the edits which are "so four years ago".
#2012anzaborrego #anzaborregodesert #anzaborregostatepark
Comments
nice shots +Jeff Sullivan … stirring up lots of ideas !!!
+Jeff Bond February is a great time to go to Anza-Borrego, as the wildflowers start blooming. I highly recommend it! I've been there four times so far in the Feb/March timeframe. If the wildflower reports start to say that it'll be a good year (after the big rains we had in early December), +Lori Hibbett and I may head down there in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the December rain wasn't too late to kick off a good bloom.
Nice pics.thank you
#CALIFORNIA
If you have a chance and remember please give me a heads up if you're going, that sounds awesome I would totally make a trip like that thank you for the great information +Jeff Sullivan
+Jeff Bond Looks promising:
"We have had several reports that there is a lot of plant germination in the Borrego Valley. Plants are just beginning to be seen poking through the ground. That bodes well for flowers in another few weeks."
http://www.abdnha.org/pages/03flora/reports/current.htm
One of my favorite places
Bellisima foto
What's a "story"? I'm not on G+ very often anymore. Is this new?
awesome scenery
+J. Rae Chip Yes! Well, sort of. The feature came out months ago, but you have to look for it to find it. Drop down your Home menu, select Photos, then drop down the menu at the top, and the first item on the list is Stories. Select that, and you'll see the Stories you have to choose from. to edit, then share.
Basically The Story function looks at all of your G+/Picasa photos (and Blogger and Panoramio if the accounts are linked), and it identifies trips or events, and puts them in the format you see when you follow a link like the one I shared. The owner of the Story has the ability to select "Edit" to choose different photos from the trip.
If you want to add photos, and they're not already visible when you select Edit, you can put them on G+/Picasa and ask for the Story to be regenerated, or you can tell a G+ Photos process to back up photos from your phone (I don't) or from your Windows desktop, adn it will try to create stories as it's adding those (each private until you share them I assume).
So I added folders to my Windows desktop specifically to have the photos found for potential Stories. I think it had 40+ potential Stories for me, going all the way back to 2004!
The one feature i wish it had was the ability to immediately upload a photo to add to a G+ album and Story, and the ability to add photos from other G+ Albums. The Story function does best with photos which have dates intact and lots of tags (which get added to my latest photos by Lightroom).
Before 2009 or 2010 most of my JPG photos lack tags because I tagged them as they were uploaded to a Web site. It would be handy if I could just point to photos to add to a G+ Story, or ones to start a Story about. It would be nice to have blog embed code for Stories too, or a Share to Blogger function.
oh and also… you keep talking about December rain. What rain are you referring to?
+Jeff Sullivan please text / call me when you have an idea of when you are going to AB. I don't live in the area anymore, but it would be nice to see you again, and I could try to get out there.
+J. Rae Chip When we were in Florida the first week of December we heard that California was getting drenched, but since we weren't local we didn't see any detailed maps. We could see in Death Valley that the plant growth was pretty spotty, definitely not strong in most places. It sounds like AB is doing better, but I'm not sure if we'll make it that far.
It got a few sprinkles in December but nothing substantial. I know the coast got a good drenching, but not much in the desert. You should see the Salton Sea right now. The waters are low enough to reveal parts of land that nobody alive had ever seen.
Not torrential rainfall +Jeff Sullivan but many desert areas have been getting good consistent rain since mid-December and I have high hopes for this wildflower season. I was in the El Paso mountains just north of Red Rock last week and the puddles were very large and deep, they had another good drenching. When I did the Mojave Road (goes mostly through Mojave Preserve) everything was damp and green and the Mojave River was extremely high. Tomorrow I'm heading out to Johnson Valley (near 29 Palms) and hoping it dries out some before I get there because it is a wet and muddy mess they got so much rain last week. Haven't been to ABDSP since October though, so can't give a first hand report, but Mojave desert regions are looking good.
Thank you very much to share such beautiful photos and what are your adventurous spirit and curiosity recorded, so beautiful moments when the wild flowers bloom and the full moon and every picture tells its own story. Have a nice day. 🙂 +Jeff Sullivan
Thank you very much to share such beautiful photos and what are your adventurous spirit and curiosity recorded, so beautiful moments when the wild flowers bloom and the full moon and every picture tells its own story. Have a nice day. 🙂 +Jeff Sullivan
Very good
Interesting – I wasn't familiar with the "story" thing. It is shaping up to be a pretty decent wildflower year in Anza-Borrego this year.
+Ron Niebrugge The desert is going to go nuts with wildflowers this year, from Anza Borrego to Death Valley to Vegas and beyond. The peak has a ways to go in most places, but +Lori Hibbett and I found some good locations already, last Friday.
+Jeff Sullivan It has been a good year! Finally! Unfortunately, some of the best places in Anza-Borrego were wiped out this week by caterpillars. 🙁 There are still lots of good places.
+Ron Niebrugge Yes it's going to be a great year for caterpillars and moths as well. The larger ones are "hummingbird moths" (AKA hawk moth/sphinx moth), they love to dine on the dune evening primrose.