Bitterwater Road Extravaganza

This has not been a spectacular rainy season in California...around average in most places. However, the rain has fallen steadily and moderately since the first of the year, and has continued into April, along with below normal temperatures. The result has been a late but excellent wildflower season from the desert to the coast. Last Friday, heading home on tedious highway 46 toward Paso Robles, I decided to take a detour onto Bitterwater Road. This is a quiet route, paved but very lightly settled, almost no traffic. Most of the year, this country is brown and rather desolate. But not now! It's a garden! Here's a meadow full of goldfields, east of Shandon. These flowers are also blooming profusely in the Mojave desert.

A fine mix of tidy tips and owls clover.

A large field of tidy tips...just east of the goldfields in the earlier picture.

This hillside of poppies was just across the road from all the tidy tips.

This is a macro shot of fiddlenecks...each flower is less than an inch in diameter. These are some of the largest, most richly colored fiddlenecks I've seen.

I took tons of pictures in this area. May post more in the near future. The hills near Bitterwater Road were purple, gold, and yellow...absolutely beautiful!