In Search of Spring Flowers & California Poppy "Super" Bloom! April 2020

Happy Spring!  These are coronavirus times and things are weird.  Not even going to sugar coat it.  So I, being me, self-distance in a car with a camera.  In search of beauty.  

I took a drive up towards Jackson, California in search of California poppies, which I had heard were blooming pretty profusely due to some late rains we were having in this drought year.  The drive did not disappoint!

Soon, I saw entire hill sides full of poppy patches!  

After taking the two pictures above, I turned around at a little closed county park by a river.  As I was pulling out, I noticed that the hillside had blue honeysuckle growing.  It was mostly in shadow, but I was able to get this awesome picture that turned out to be one of my favorites of the day. 

Back heading NorthWest on Highway 49, I pulled over beneath another hillside that was covered with poppies.  I had been heading in the wrong direction to pull over on the winding road prior, and the available pullouts were covered with cars and people anyway...everyone trying to get a photo in the poppies.  

But this time, there were only a couple cars pulled over and no one in the actual flowers! So I got luck and got a few cool shots. 

After I finished at this spot, I pulled back on to Highway 49, went around the corner, and pulled right back off again! This time there was a profusion of poppies and lupine at the top and bottom of what was otherwise a barren red cliff.  It was so cool looking!  I spent about 40 minutes there, wandering around the bottom of the cliff and taking photos of anything interesting.  

There were more than just poppies and lupine on the cliff face!  Beautiful red succulents were in bloom as well!

I finished up by laying on the ground (luckily I had a windbreaker in the car because the side of the road was littered with bits of broken glass and trash - do better people!!) and taking some shots of the blooms at the bottom of the cliff.

I then headed back and planned to stop twice more...once for a gorgeous purple blooming tree I had seen in a meadow but there hadn't been a place to stop on the other side of the highway.  It was so beautiful against the bright green background!  I actually had to lower the color sat in this photo!

While I was pulling away, I noticed what appeared to be a half cultivated and half wild garden at the base of a church on a hill.  There was a drainage culvert which had lush grass and blooms around it.  I had to pull over once again.

I have no idea what these pink cone-like flowers were and Google was absolutely no help.  But they looked so cool mixed in at the base of these poppies!

There were a few solitary white Iris here and there amongst the rocks making of the bed of the culvert and stream.  My mom loved Iris and planted then in our yard growing up.  

This BEE!  in stunning purple blooming clover!!

These flowers were sooo tiny!  I mean...tiny!  Like about the size of a quarter of a dime.  

And a purple IRIS!  Hi mom!

Okay, another unplanned stop.  I had taking some full moon pics in Jackson of the beautiful St. Sava Orthodox Church on January 31, 2019.  I heard that there was a vantage point to see down on the church, so I decided to make a quick detour to see if I could find it.  

I didn't.  But I did shoot a kind of cool photo in between two houses!  There is a piece of pretty-bad Photoshop on the lower left bottom of the photo where I tried to 'shop out a roof.  lol  

My last stop was in Rancho Murrieta.  I had seen a large swath of yellow Lupine growing in front of the construction site of a new Bel Air.  Full disclosure, I didn't see any other yellow Lupine on my drive although there were tons of blue ones.  So I think these may have been planted to make the construction site prettier.   But it was stunning and they were mixed with a lot of wildflowers so I felt justified in including them.  :)

Laker colors!!  Hi Kobe and Gigi!

I loved how the three yellow ones lined up in this photo.

Such a fun and rewarding drive.  I miss nature and road trips so much!  Be safe people.  Be well.  

xoxo

Sony A350

18-70 & 70-300 Lens used

Sights of the Coachella Valley - Road Trip into the Desert

When most people think of Coachella, it's music, celebrities, and bohemian vibes that come to mind.  But there is so much more to this desert area than a music festival.  I took another trip south into the desert to try to catch a few things I hadn't seen before. 

This is actually the part before the other part of this quick road trip.  Check out the beautiful DESERT SUPER BLOOM from my last post. 

This leg of the adventure takes us from Yucaipa, where I spent part of the night in my car and my toes nearly froze off, East on the 10, and then South on 111. 

The sun was rising as I came down into the valley from Yucaipa and it was glorious. 

One reason I had taken this quick trip was because it had been raining in California pretty much nonstop and severely for the last few weeks.  I needed some sun!  To be honest, I was starting to worry that it was still raining pretty steadily all the way through Yucaipa.  Maybe I wasn't going to get the sun I wanted!  Maybe I picked one of the 4 days a year (possible exaggeration) that it rains in the desert!

But the sun rays breaking through the clouds and highlighting the windmills was SUCH a welcome sight!  And a breathtaking sight as well!

So much so that I had to include a black and white, color, and square version of this scene.  lol

One of the main draws of the Coachella Valley (besides the music festival) is palm trees.  All kinds of palms, but for me, I had really wanted to stop by one of the date palm farms I had seen on my last trip.  So I pulled off 111 and headed into a neighborhood to see what there was to see around one of the most prominent stands of palms off the highway. 

I parked my car so I could change into some cooler clothes and walk around a bit.  There was a huge kettle of turkey vultures (that's what a group of vultures in flight is called...I Googled) circling the tall palms in the field next to my car.  

I didn't see or smell anything dead, so that was a relief.  I continued my walk toward the date palms and saw something bright and wonderful. 

Oranges?  And cows. 

Honestly, I couldn't tell what these fruits are.  I know some palms produce orange fruit, but I think (from Google) that they are smaller than these...about the size of grapes where these are like oranges.  

I know citrus - including oranges - is a common crop in SoCal, but why would they just be rotting in a field of palms and cows in the desert?  I have no idea and neither did Google. 

BUT!  I know one thing...I will be going back so that I can try their dates and shakes.  Unfortunately, they were closed when I drove by as it was shortly before 8:00 a.m. and they open at 9:00.  And since I was making a big circle through Anza Borrega, I knew I would have to plan another trip. :-)

But back to the beautiful palms at Oasis Date Gardens...  I did park and walk around the front to try to get some cool photos of the palms, but honestly, I couldn't do them justice.  It's a very cool and majestic site that you have to experience in person. 

Then it was time to continue on in search of additional interesting Coachella Valley sights.  I didn't have to go far...in fact just down the road and I had to pull over again because there was the coolest dead palm tree and I just had to have a photo of it. 

Then I hopped back in the car and headed to my next destination, the Salton Sea. Specifically, there was an art installation (or three) that I was hoping to find.  The art is part of the Desert X which is a biennial art festival designed to bring art to the Coachella Valley to increase awareness of the Valley.  

I knew where one of the installations was so that's where I was headed and hoped to maybe find a couple more. The art was titled "Halter" and was by Eric N. Mack (check out his Instagram).   I was excited to see it and perhaps put my own art fingerprint on it. 

The art was woven, knit fabric draped on an abandoned gas station. 

Surrounding the gas station and other abandoned buildings beside it, the desert bloom was in full force. 

I was really glad that I made it down there to see this really cool art in the desert.  Unfortunately, the art was vandalized and stolen about 10 days after I had seen it.  :-(  They found charred bits of fabric and the rope that had held it in place and the rest was missing. 

The rest of the photos are sights around the East and South shore of the Salton Sea.  

Behind the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club - Purplified!

Obsidian

Farm fields burning

That's it for today's post.  There are so many cool areas around the Salton Sea that I didn't get to on this trip.  But here are a few from my last trip that are really cool and worthy of a revisit:

Mud Volcanoes and Burrowing Owls!

Dead Tilapia Staring and Bombay Beach Ruins!

Salvation Mountain and Slab City!

I love this awesome area!

xoxo

Nikon D600