No Horny Goats Seen at Anza Borrego State Park

Anza  Borrego Dessert State Park is named after Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, a Spanish explorer born in Fronteras, Mexico. Anza, which I initially thought to be a city in Spain, is derived from the Basque language. Basque, where the ancestors of the Mexico-born Spanish explorer came from  was a disputed territory located between Spain and France. The people of Basque, an autonomous region of Spain had a distinct way of identifying themselves from the rest of the Spanish population by putting "De" before their chosen pen names. Anza, which is more of the Mexico-born Spanish explorer, means "pasture in the dwarf elder trees". 
Anza Borrego Desert State Park, is also named after the big horn sheep, Djeline's white butts and my horny goats.  Kurt, the gracious carpool driver who made everyone wonder if Robin Williams came back to life unshaven, thought they must be busy elsewhere, it's the mating season. Larry Redden also referred to them  Djeline's white butts, as goats. 
 
"It's an artifact!" Tim Mc, the desert canyoneer leading the group declared. I thought the extremely rusted International  Harvester tractor was a junk that was hastily abandoned for some flash flood alert. 
The third crossing is for high clearance vehicles. Beyond the third and the last crossing are more vegetation that included a seedy grapevine. 
The historic marker headlined Santa Catarina reads:
"This spring area was named by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza when his overland exploration party camped here on March 14, 1774, during the opening of the Anza trail from Sonora into Alta California. Anza's colonial exploration of 1775 consisting of 800 heads of livestock camped the night of December 23." 
The dates and years referred to in the historic marker, confusing as they seem, revealed some connection why the main thoroughfare by the visitor's center of the park is called Christmas Circle. The Mexico-born Spanish explorer may be the El Capitan named  behind trails, reservoirs, open reserves including the half dome I have always wanted to climb at Yosemite National Park. 
The oasis named by El Capitan as Santa Catarina nurtures the vegetation in the area now known as Lower Willows. Lower Willows is home to willows (of course) and an area marked as Ocotillo Garden. 
Thorny ocotillos are also known as coach whip, vine cactus,  Jacob's staff or Jacob's cactus. The ocotillo plant is not really a cactus and neither is it a vine. It is a desert shrub indigenous to the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts in Mexico. 

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