elainegrey

So far, looking at the photos from yesterday, i am mostly muttering "What WAS i focusing on??!!" but i think the answer is, "USE THE TRIPOD." There are landscape images that are not as crisp as i have managed in the past.

I did bring the tripod but left it in the car.



Almonds are in California news for how much water they take to grow.



Panoche Valley was not covered with goldfields, but there was a lovely stretch with enough to create this image.



Next time i 'll be smacking my forehead will be as i face the flowers i collected and realize i did not document well enough where i took my samples from.

I'm building the trip notes up in Evernote, but in short it was a gloriously lovely trip. There was weather, downpours and sprinkles, as well as puffy clouds and passes of sunshine. I had thoughts not to visit the BLM Access Road area in Panoche Hills, and am glad we decided to head up there to use the picnic table. We didn't use the table, but the flowers were wonderful.

For the California photo list i wrote that we, "Found carpets of goldfields, some asteraceae bigger than gold fields but about the same color, hill sides with fiddlenecks and phacelia. Some were on Panoche Rd (a dirt road which was fine for our car when we were on it this morning), others up in the BLM areas off the Panoche Hills Access Rd before the picnic/overlook spot. Looked like there had been a terrific fiddleneck bloom earlier and many were fading, but other areas were still lovely. The hills were getting showers while we were there. Other flowers - lupines, blue dicks, cream cups, tidy tips, owl's clover other asteraceae, variety of native brassicas -- sighted. Between the hills and I-5 the almond tree bloom was lovely, with petals coating the ground under trees. Plenty of mustard along I-5 between Pacheco Pass and Panoche Hills."