Today we started our journey home. On the way we stopped at the Antelope Poppy Reserve. Liz's favorite flowers are California Poppies and it just so turned out that they had a bumper crop growing this year. The Reserve website posted that they would be in full bloom right about the time we were heading home. Unfortunately, California has had an unexpected heat wave this last week and most of the poppies died. Here's what the park looked like when we arrived:
There was still hope as we had heard the poppies survived on the north facing slopes, so we hiked up to check it out. Nope! Not much there, a few flowers here and there. However, from the top of the hill we could see a bright orange hillside across the highway with a trail of cars running from the reserve to a dirt road through someone's field. We followed along and here's what we found:
That's Otis in Ninja mode out there amongst the flowers.
And Sofia!
Not a flying monkey. :D
Look at the hillside full of orange in the distance! I can't imagine what this must have looked like a week ago, before the heat.
From the Antelope Valley we headed west to catch up with the 99 towards Visalia. We saw several of these trucks, full of lemons, along the way:
We don't see these at home!
And finally, a delightful stop for dinner with some of Patrick's California family, the Heinrichs! We got to chat with our Grandma Adelia's brother Les and his wife Marie, along with their kids Deanne, Darrell, Keith, Arlene and Arlene's husband Allan, along with their boys. We enjoyed getting to know this side of the family a bit more and were so happy to get to share a meal with them.
... and for the young ones, here's why you have to be cautious in poppy fields.
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