In mid-April I went with my friend and her son to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve outside Lancaster, CA. I had been down for a visit and for some Dungeons & Dragons (yes…. I play that now…) and had seen pictures of the poppies on Instagram, but figured it was further south and mostly out of my way – I was trying to avoid the Palm Springs/Indio area as Coachella was going on the same week I was there. (I had been planning on staying at The Saguaro for a couple of days and going to Joshua Tree, but didn’t want to deal with the festival goers.)
ANYWAY so another of our friends who lives in Santa Clarita had gone to see the poppies with her kids, and I realized that it may not be so far out of my way after all, and I suggested to S that we go and she was immediately enthusiastic!
Poppies as far as the eye could see! There were a fair amount of trails around and we walked probably a little over a mile throughout the park. With a three year old we were a little limited, but oh, just that hour was enough to soak it all in!
I texted Malvina a picture while we were there and she said I should Photoshop the Emerald City in one of these pictures, which I thought was a delightful idea. 🙂
After the poppies, we went to the Arther B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park, which has Joshua Trees, the largest of the yucca. This park was only about 7 miles away from the poppy fields, so I still got a taste of Joshua Tree State Park without having to worry about parking!
I am still getting used to the new version of WordPress that uses “blocks” but I wanted to try the gallery feature which you can see above. Seems… ok.
Anyway, this was a fun part of my trip! I also stopped in Santa Barbara, Cambria, and Monterey – I drove up Highway 1 on the coast on the way back before heading inland at Monterey to connect with 101 through San Jose to get home. I may possibly do a post about that stuff, I took a ton of great pictures, especially in Santa Barbara!