04.04.11
Posted in photo at 12:47 pm by heidihoho7
After our weekend to the coast Barb and I were back in Poppy Photo Mode. We went out to our favorite field for try to get some closed poppies as well as some good closeups. It was a bit cooler with a slight wind, which got stronger througout the day. Our first main field which had been spectacular (and in peak) the first few days was past its prime and we took a few shots but decided to move on to see what our other fields held… We continued on to our 2nd normal stop and again took just a few but moved on quickly. We saw just a single photographer ahead of us taking a pictures not of the poppies that we could see, but possibly a random couch chair that was out in the fields. We thought it odd and Barb had hoped to chat with him but he ran back to his suv and drove on quickly.
At our third field, I was just getting back in the mode and getting what i thoguht would be some good shots when Barb yells to me, “Heidi, we have company and may need to move!” as a truck drives up towards us pretty quickly. I walk back to the car and we notice that he stops and walks up to us… “Have you seen a man walking around?” and we hadn’t and told him so.. Barb (being barb which is why i love her) asks “And who are you?” as we were originally think he may have been the land owner as weren’t entirely sure we weren’t trespassing… but he said he was out enjoying the flowers and was driving up a wash nearby and happend upon an overturned SUV and was trying to find the driver.
Now Barb and i had both heard some revving nearby a few minutes before, but hadn’t thought anything of it, thinking it was most likely a 4 wheeler enjoying the dirt tracks… but after hearing about this vehicle we started to wonder if maybe it was him he’d heard., and if it might have been the photographer from a few minutes before.. but we didn’t hear any kind of crash and i thought maybe we should have but then again its the hills and sound does weird things… we decided to try to help search for the missing owner and ended up checking out the overturned suv.
We were able to see 2 sets of tracks, one of which was very likely the tracks of the suv… but the other set was comign from a different direction but also seemed to be aimed at the same area of the cliff of the wash. They both seemed to have braked or slid hard and the suv had rolled over. We did find a cell phone near the 2nd set of tracks but it didn’t turn on and we had no idea if it was the suv’s or not… we checked in with the “good samaritan” who had checked the vehicle, take GPS coords, and mentioned he might let the cops know what was up… so we did a few more drive arounds to try to find the owner but after an hour we decided there wasn’t anything else we could do so we went back to flowers.
We decided to leave that are and went back to the fun off-roading tracks nearby and found a wonderful fields of owl’s clover and lots of poppies that were in better shape than our original fields… we spent some good time there taking lots and lots of photos.
We finally decided we’d had enough and started back on our way… with of course 1 last pitstop to capture a road surrounded in poppies….
We’d been debating all day as to what may have happened back at the rollover and ultimately decided that maybe that samaritan hadn’t turned it in, and we were thinking maybe we should tell the cops just in case… after a quick call to my father-in-law we agreed that we should tell them what we knew… so we made a stop at the sheriff’s station and ended up having to call in to the county cops to give them our details.. we’d taken pics so we had licence plates and the makes of vehicles and i had saved waypoints on my iphone so we could tell them as many facts as possible… we felt good when we found out it hadn’t been reported…
we ended the night with a very yummy dinner back at the Lemon Leaf and spent the night sharing pictures, stories, and geting a super night’s rest… I think we both agreed we had a spectacular trip… we timed it perfectly with peak flowers on sunny, windless days… had a nice side trip to the coast, and truly got into photo mode for a few days with a great friend. Good stuff.
And thanks to miss Barb for always saying i was a good driver, despite the train rush and my many quick turns and sudden stops (granted some of those were for pics so that’s ok)… and for the great fun and debates on our mystery….
Now for me on to the coast!
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04.02.11
Posted in photo at 10:38 pm by heidihoho7
For our third day we decided to mix it up a bit and decided to head to the coast with a drive through of another possible wildflower location- the Carrizo Plain National Monument. It took 2 hours to get to the plains but was pretty easy to find. It seemed like a random side road and it kind of was… most of it is dirt, but some of it was paved, which we found a little strange.
We made a quick stop at the entrance but quickly decided to move on and see what Carrizo had in store for us. First we encountered some cows, as it seems that the NM also shares some of its land and borders with ranches that graze cattle. We stopped to take some portraits of the cows, even after all those years of growing up with them i still like to get pics of them, and these weren’t the usual dairy cows either – they had droopy ears 
As we started back up i noticed that there were LOTS of furry caterpillars on the road making the crossing. I tried to dodge the cute furries but i’m afraid some of them won’t make it to butterflyhood as there were just too many that i couldn’t thread the needle every time. It was strange, they were always on the pavement portions and never on the dirt.
We continued on and did some stops along the way for some fiddleneck, some neat purple thistles, and then finally for fields for we think of goldfields and some other yellow flowers.
Near the lovely yellow flowers we happened upon a biker from SLO (san luis obispo) who barb chatted up (surprise haha!) but we did get some good info from him… The plains road follows along parallel to the San Andreas Fault just off to the east. We were on the Pacific Plate side and we could see the ridges on the North American Plate side. Kind of fun to be right on the fault line imagining what could happen.
We also found out that they (who they are i’m forgetting) are trying to reintroduce natural animals and bring the area back to a more native state to create an “american serengeti”. So a group of 150 elk and 100 pronghorn antelope have been reintroduced to the area, although we didn’t see them unfortunately. He also told us about how they get rid of the tumbleweeds by bringing in a large herd of sheep for a few weeks to nibble off the plants and eat the seeds for a few years in a row, eventually reducing them and now they are non-existent in the area. We thought that was a super cool way of returning the land back to its natural habitat.
After much chatting and getting a dinner referral (Big Sky Cafe gets a big thumbs up from us) we were on way to SLO. WE did stop at the amazing yellow fields near Soda Lake but after the intense poppies our standards were a bit high… we worked our way through the rolling hills, spotting some deer along the way. We did a quick scouting trip to Shell Creek. While fun and pretty, not picturesque enough for us and absolutely very little flowers to tempt us.
We stopped for dinner and a quick walk through town. SLO has a really fun casual feel to it. The downtown area was pretty with trees lining the street with its wide sidewalks and fun little shops. It was bustling with activity on a saturday night and looked like a fun place to hang out if we’d had more time.
We continued on to our final destination for the night, Morro Bay. We hadn’t really known what to expect but were excited to see that our hotel was 2 blocks from the ocean and there was a fun little wharf area in addition to the fact that we could drive right on out to Morro Rock, the namesake of the bay. The rock is a volcano cone remnant and i’m sure would make cool climbing if it were allowed. We drove to both sides (with some more major needle threading of insane potholes) and explored a bit trying to decide if we should try to do a sunset photo shoot. We did have fun watching the waves crash into the wall of rocks that protected the bay- there would be occasional sets that would be huge and just crash so hard and high we could hear it… something about that was just fun.
We drove around a bit going back and forth on the perfect sunset location and after a few detours we ended up on the beach to the north, which provided both a nice beach walk but also a possible picture. We didn’t get a great sunset or color but did enjoy the walk. The only downside to jumping around on the rocks and frolicking on the beach was that somehow i lost my main credit card.. a bit of a bummer but i’m thinking the fishes might get me some AA miles haha. After a bit of looking in the dark, we gave up and made the call to cancel and get a new one… despite the drama it was a good day on the road.
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04.01.11
Posted in photo at 12:32 am by heidihoho7
Our second day of poppies started a bit more slowly, we were tired from a late night of editing so we slept in a bit (a rarity on photo trips) We got on our way after a nice breakie and headed towards the poppy reserve. After a slight detour – I have no idea why there are no gas stations on the west side of town- we drove on up to the visitor center. We were looking around and asking ourselves where are the poppies?? Then we asked the volunteers, they admitted they didn’t have the carpets of poppies we were looking for but were super helpful and very nice. While we would have loved to stay and explore we opted to head back to our spot from the day before.
Once again we were just about the only people on this small dirt road and we loved it. We drank in the poppies and the sun (a little too much in my case) and had fun trying different techniques. We both had some ideas of what kind of images we wanted to get and our first day was a good start but we knew we definitely needed a few more wonderful images before we could say that we were done with the poppies – and we may never be haha!
I so love my wide lenses and had remembered a fun shot i’d seen during my research and decided to try to make some of my own. After having some success, i convinced Barb to join me… so we found ourselves putting our cameras on the ground, with no idea of what we were getting but loving it over and over again. We had such a great time playing and experimenting.
I started feeling the sun a bit after an hour or two of photo time and we decided to start to move on to another area… well that of course means we stop at least a few more times before we even hit the main road. We’d made plans to grab a late lunch and then we were going to head east to see if we could find some coreopsis… well no big surprise but we got distracted yet again. So we had a few clif bars, and decided to have real food later
We’d been distracted by these amazing hills of orange, and so decided to explore another dirt road that this time included a bit of true off-roading. I was loving every minute of that and Barb held on as we bounced and debated what to go up or down and what to leave for another time… down one of these roads we found a truly amazing field of poppies that were so orange it was almost blinding. We just drank it in.
We met some fellow photogs and decided to try to find some owl’s clover.. while we don’t think we found the same collection they alluded to, we did find some fun areas ended up doing some more fun driving and exploring.
Finally we felt like we should work our way back to civilization but yet again decided to just go exploring some more. A pop stop held us over temporarily and we continued on our east where we didn’t find those coreopsis but did find some J Trees w goldfields. So far we haven’t had great luck with suggested locations but we’re doing just fine on our own!
We finished the night w a yummy dinner at the Lemon Leaf, a referral from the folks at the reserve. Now that hit the spot!
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