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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03.31.11
Posted in photo at 11:45 pm by heidihoho7
So after much discussion and debate, Barb and I decided to hit the good state of California for our first attempt at Poppy photography. Barb flew out early to spend time with her son and his family and i joined up with her wednesday night. My flight wasn’t overly exciting despite the fact that the 2 Midwestern gals in the opposite row were partying it up and actually had to be cut off, BUT the sunset that night was absolutely amazing. A good omen for our photo trip…. so after a very long wait to get my rental car, i was finally on my way towards Pasadena to hook up with barb for a quick night of sleep before we headed north.
Our plan for the first full day was to meet up with a local photographer, Brent R. Paull of American West Photography, who we’d convinced to give us a private tour of the area. After a quick meet and greet in Gorman, we were on our way. Since we were a little early and the weather has been a bit crazy the flowers weren’t peaking quite yet and the flowers aren’t always where Brent thought they would be. So no beautiful Gorman hills of pastel color, but maybe another year!
We continued on towards Lancaster and the Antelope Valley hills where we got our first glimpse of color… off in the distance we saw large patches of bright orange. Just beautiful and gave us hope that we’d find good patches of color ourselves to photograph. Shortly after that we started seeing poppies alongside the road and then more and more patches as we drove.
After this taunting and excited peek at why we came all this way, we turned onto a dirt road and started driving a bit off the beaten path and made our first stop. Here Barb and I finally got to get back into what we call photo mode and boy were we in heaven. Poppies and goldfields filled our viewfinders and we played around with macro and ultra wide lenses… attempting to make images that live up to our own expectations ( we do expect to make coffee table books you know, haha).
After some time exploring this first area, we decided to move on… we stopped just a minute later for another lovely collection of poppies in the sage, but this time i found some yellow poppies!
And yet again just a few minutes beyond that location we found a field of poppies with what we think are cream cups that we just fell in love with – the purple, whites and oranges… we shot for some time but decided to feed our rumbling bellies and continue on with our tour.
After a yummy lunch we headed north to find some california oaks and possibly some baby blue eyes… the road past Caliente was quite steep and windy, but super fun to drive while we scoped out our options. We made a few stops to check out the valleys, oaks, and a decent patch of the blue eyes surrounded with popcorn flowers. We found some lupine and had to do a few grab shots along the way as well, Brent was quickly learning our lingo
Our first bit of true excitement of our trip came when we crossed the railroad tracks, right as the lights were going and the arms were coming down… i started to pause but then gunned it thinking we had plenty of time. We were fine, but did notice that the train was in sight and was a bit scary. Won’t do that again!
PARA HERE – NOTE i wrote more but the blog isn’t liking it- so i’ll update later w/ the full paragraph!.
Our final leg of our tour took us on our way to Arvin, while the fields there have too many tall weeds due to all the rain we didn’t leave completely empty handed… we saw a bobcat!
While not all areas were postcard perfect, this was exactly what we’d hoped for – a great tour of the area with some insight to areas we might further explore in our next few days in the area…
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