The rains of California this winter and spring have brought a beautiful display of wildflowers and poppies, California’s state flower.

Recently Spaceman and I took a drive up to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve via back roads. With John Denver crooning (love that word) on the stereo, we wound around curvy roads and sped over hills until, in the distance, patches of the hillside revealed an orange haze. Approaching we were delighted to see fields of California poppies!

(strange what you find among the flowers!)

We stopped at a few spots on our way to the preserve which proved to be fortuitous as the preserve itself was swarming with cars and people. It would have taken easily 20 minutes to get up to the entrance and then the “nature” would have consisted of hordes of people plundering over the poppies to get the best photo. I highly recommend you either a) go during the week and very early or b) drive through the back roads and find your own hillsides full of wild poppies to explore.

The great thing about charting your own course is that you can stumble upon fields of wildflowers too. Just outside the tiny town of Arvin, the hills turned a purple and yellow hue with a sprinkling of poppy orange. These beautiful wild flowers were an added bonus to our day-cation.

Interestingly, it seemed Spaceman was most excited about the fields and fields of solar panels and wind energy windmills we drove through just outside Lancaster. We both had never seen so many in one place. It seems solar energy is how astronomers detect Dyson Spheres built by alien civilizations.