Back to Carrizo Plain National Park

Cindy and I love to photograph wildflowers so decided to go looking for them for our Saturday outing.  We started at Shell Creek Road, which is only about 40 minutes away.  We got lots of pictures, but I plan to go back to look for bees when they are easier to photograph and the light is more conducive  to getting better pictures. Shao I'll save those pictures for now.

When we had pretty much exhausted the views/flowers, and the place was rapidly getting too crowed to feel safe, we decided to continue on to Carrizo Plains National Wildlife Refuge. We had been there before, and I loved it, but Cindy was sad that it didn't equal the superbloom of the year before.  We had not made it all the way to the south end of the monument and a few weeks had passed and we could expect to find new wildflowers and beautiful scenes.

We were not disappointed. We had much wider view here of wildflowers, and saw new species of wildflowers in bloom.  We ended up enjoying nature here for about six hours, never coming within twenty feet of other people. Our spirits were raised and I'm sure we boosted our immunity system.

We hit the jackpot after we arrived in the area we hadn't explored last time

This is a panoramic of a particularly beautiful landscape from a side road

Spent a lot of time worshipping on my knees

I haven't identified this - it may be introduced but was plentiful

Foreground plants are thistle sage

Tansy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia)

Purple Owl's Clover (Castilleja exserta)

Common Hillside Daisy, (Monolopia lanceolata)

One of the views we spent a LOT of time appreciating - and attempting to capture

Late afternoon brought a few clouds - and made us search for landscapes enhanced by them

Lark sparrow - birds are breeding and secretive - but this is an importing bird site

Purple owl's  clover,  (Castilleja exserta) surrounded by  California goldfields, (Lasthenia californica)

Another view - with clouds

Still figuring this out - we only saw a few examples of it - please comment if you know

I loved nature's composition of thistle sage and fiddleneck flowers - click here
 for a very interesting article on this seemingly weedy flower

Closeup of a highly armed sage

We got really excited when this cloud started making - but it never lived up to its promise

Seed head of silverpuffs - probably Uropappus lindleyi

A telescopic view of an interesting juxtaposed planting. 

This little range runs very near the San Andreas Fault

We hope for more friends of this cloud, but didn't get them

Getting ever better - but  what IS that white spec? ....

....I apparently was providing entertainment to this ground squirrel

Carrizo Plain encompasses 180,000 acres and is managed by the BLM and partners.  Currently you can even camp there, but ONLY in dispersed camping.  Many such camping places have a little side road to keep you out of traffic, and I saw some where people had built and left fire rings.  We saw several camping groups enjoying social distancing.  And they are keeping the restrooms open and clean.  We even found hand sanitizer.  And we bring our own disinfectant wipes so we can wipe down the door handles and know we are not bringing infections home.