Searching for Wildflowers: Paso Roble CA

We were in search of wild flowers and word on the internet was the Paso Robles area was in full bloom. So we loaded up and headed south. You might think that wild flowers would be easy to find, after all they are bright and showy and hopefully right along the road where they cannot be missed. We had seen pictures of them, carpets of yellow and white flowers, blues, orange, white. All lounging next to each other in wonderful arrays of color.

As we discovered on this trip they are not everywhere. As we drove to the area where we heard they were blooming there were no wildflowers in sight. None. It wasn’t until we found our way to the exact spot where Shell Creek Road and Highway 58 meet,  that we final found carpets of color.  This is where the reports of an excellent bloom directed searchers to go.  And it was true, this was the place were the flowers were.   Unfortunately, as pretty as these flowers were, we missed the real bloom. It turns out that this year the flowers were in full bloom for a very short period of time and then 90+ degrees weather and winds dried them out literally overnight.

We were determined to find the blooms we were after and began driving all over the area including a jaunt to the Carissa Plaines where we thought for sure we would find carpets of color.  But 100 miles later we still had not found anything measuring up to Shell Road and Highway 58.  We did come upon some nice patches of Lupines and we were grateful to find them.  They seemed to have been undaunted by the heat wave.

There was a lesson to be learned in this.  If you hear about a wild flower bloom, don't wait until it is convenient to go, leave right away.  There just is no way of knowing how long it will last.  (Can you see the little ground squirrel in this last image?)

If you enjoyed these images you might want to visit Bob's web site to see more of his fine art landscape photography by clicking here.