Antelope Valley - California Poppy Reserve

Springtime is a time for flowers bloom and warm sunny weather! We got just that on April 20th when  Erland, Erica and I decided to take a drive down to the poppy reserve to take in the view of the blooming state flower! We Filled the car with gas, got some sandwiches and drinks, picked Erica up and off we went! The drive down was nice took us about an1-2 hours to  reach the reserve. It was a tiny bit overcast but it all went away by the time we reached the poppy reserve.

Peak season 2008  : )

Driving this far out of the city, one can see some really interesting things. We passed a home along the road with a lot of metal work sculptures. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was a hanging metal angel/skeleton thing with huge wings and it was holding a skull. I turned around so we could see it better. It took me by surprise the first time we passed it. There was another house with a beat up/ripped teddy bear tied up to a pole in front of a house. It looked like we were driving through a place ripe for a horror movie. The boonies can be really scary haha.

We reach the reserve and we are all hungry, so we walk up to the picnic area with tables and dig in to our sandwiches. We had some chocolate bars for dessert! We then cleaned up and headed out onto the trail. It was super super windy out! We didn't have any specific trail that we wanted to do so we just picked  one randomly and started walking. Unfortunately, this year the poppies didn't bloom as much as they have in prior seasons. We came at a time where they usually are at their peak (March, April is peak month, May) and everything is covered in orange but this year they just didn't bloom very well. The state park website says it was probably due to the heavy rains that we had been having recently.

  

"Peak season" 2011 : ( 

 We saw a lot of lizards on the trail and luckily no rattlesnakes. At the top of the trail we came across a park ranger who was with a bunch of little kids and their parents. They pretended to be birds since it was so windy. After enjoying the view we started back down to the car. I had an awesome time. I had really been wanting to come out here and I'm glad I did.

More pictures can be found here as usual!
Short Video



I so was planning to take a video of me doing this but there weren't enough poppies to pull it off.

Hobby #5 Cycling

Past experiences with bicycles
My earliest memory of a bicycle was when I was younger and asking Santa for a bicycle. Getting it that Christmas morning will be something I will never forget. I ran down the stairs  really early in the morning and there it was. It was a pink bike with streamers on the handles. It was awesome! My second memory concerning bikes is  middle school through high school. I had a hand me down mountain bike that had belonged to my older sister. I rode it everywhere. It got me to school and as I got older it got me to my job (6 mi round trip). The longest ride at that age was when I rode it from Altadena, CA  to El Monte, CA which was 14 miles. Great memories with my old bicycles.

Present
I decided to get a bike again. This time around I did a lot of research into what type of bike I wanted and I ended up with this.

2010 Scattante R-570

I felt, for the price I payed, that I got a good quality first road bike. I bought a helmet and some power grip pedals using my REI dividend and started to ride. I have been riding on the nearest bike path, Chandler bike path, in North Hollywood/Burbank. Starting slow and steady to get used to the drop bars and the pedals/straps combo. From my apartment to the end of the bike path one way and then back home again the distance is 6.8 miles.

 I have been having lots of fun riding again. I don't ever plan to race with it or anything but in the future I want to try and commute more with my bike. Will probably start with riding to work this summer and see how that goes since L.A drivers are not very bike friendly when it comes to sharing roads. I also have the goal to try and ride on as many bike paths as I can in this area by the end of the summer. I will be using the map from http://www.labikepaths.com/ to  find them. One down a whole lot more to go!