{"id":2368,"date":"2019-05-09T10:02:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T17:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melissaruth.com\/blog\/?p=2368"},"modified":"2019-05-07T22:02:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T05:02:46","slug":"antelope-valley-poppies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/melissaruth.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/antelope-valley-poppies\/","title":{"rendered":"ANTELOPE VALLEY POPPIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was VERY windy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is my favorite picture I took. You really get a good idea of the scale of how many poppies there were.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    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!<\/p>\n