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
