RATING: ♦♦♦♦♦
It was a dark and stormy night. Well no, but it was a cold and windy day when we decided to take an hour drive from our campground to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. The southwest was experiencing what was called a super bloom this spring due to the heavy rains over the past couple of months, and there were flowers everywhere. One of the people we follow on YouTube, Ray from “Love Your RV” had posted a video of the poppy reserve, so we felt we needed to see it for ourselves.
The California poppy was named the State Flower in 1903. Prior to that time, great fields of poppies were found throughout the state. Today, while poppies grow in many areas, the only large fields remaining are in Antelope Valley, which is located in northern Los Angeles County and southeast Kern County, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert.
As we drove closer to the reserve, we saw quite a few cars parked along the road and people walking up into the flower covered hills. When we turned into the entrance to the preserve, there was a sign (like at Disneyland) that said there would be an hour wait from the point just after the turn. Luckily, we decided to visit on a Thursday, and it was not a very nice day, cold and windy and overcast. So our wait to get into the parking lot of the preserve was only about 10 minutes. The cost to enter was $9, which included a $1 senior discount.
After a quick stop at the visitor’s center, we started up the trail. The beauty of the flowers was overwhelming. We wanted to walk the entire preserve, but it was very, very windy. Unpleasantly windy. We spent about an hour enjoying the flowers, then decided it was time to go. We were so glad to have seen the poppies in this year of super bloom!
