Scene from Julian’s 4th of July Parade, 2011.  Pho­to: Bar­bara Swanson

Bar­bara Swan­son is a big fan of the diverse ecolo­gies of San Diego’s three broad envi­ron­men­tal domains, the coast, the moun­tains and the desert, espe­cial­ly the amaz­ing Anza-Bor­rego Desert State Park with its annu­al unfold­ing of wild­flow­ers and abun­dance of wildlife. 

Her pho­to awards are numer­ous, includ­ing top awards at the San Diego Coun­ty Fair, the Ordover Gallery at the San Diego Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, and the North Coun­ty Pho­to­graph­ic Soci­ety.  Some of her pho­to­graph­ic work can be seen at barbara.photos and gree­n­earth­plan­et.  She is a sci­en­tist by vocation.

Wel­come sign at Pine Hills Road in the daf­fodil sea­son.  Pho­to: Lee McComb

Lee McComb began his acquain­tance with Julian in the ear­ly 1960s as a com­pet­i­tive cyclist with the Escon­di­do Tour­ing Club. The pelo­ton would speed through the moun­tains of Julian to the desert, except for that irre­sistible stop at the Man­zani­ta Ranch in Wyno­la for a refresh­ing cup of apple cider.

As a res­i­dent of the area lat­er, he dis­cov­ered his favorite aspects of San Diego’s back country—its his­to­ry and trails, from the amaz­ing orig­i­nal peo­ples to the col­or­ful set­tlers and the routes they took to live their lives.  His pro­fes­sion­al work is sur­vey­ing and map­ping, his hob­by inter­ests include graph­ic arts, math­e­mat­ics, astron­o­my and writ­ing.  Over the years, he has writ­ten dozens of arti­cles for local pub­li­ca­tion about the Julian scene, includ­ing a num­ber of its fine artists.  He has appeared twice in the hero role at the annu­al Julian Melo­dra­ma and Olio.

By the way, always stop by an Avery sculp­ture when vis­it­ing Bor­rego Springs!