Lifestyle
This iconic wildflower spot can be dazzling. Is it worth the 150-mile trek from L.A. this year?
Carrizo Plain National Monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County is one of California’s most iconic wildflower viewing areas, but is this year’s display worth the 150-mile drive from L.A.?
If you’re looking for blankets of bright color covering the hills, the answer is no.
But if you want a beautiful outing with boundless sky, close encounters with birds, Indigenous and geologic history and undulating waves of grass punctuated by splotches of gold, violet and orange, then definitely yes — but wait a good week or more for the muddy roads to become passable again.
In early March, a friend and I planned our visit for April 14, largely because the rainy season is typically over by the end of March, peak bloom is typically in early April, and given this spring’s cool temperatures, we figured the weather would have warmed by then to encourage a good display. But the first two weeks of April brought plenty of chilly showers to much of Central and Southern California, and during our visit, the temperatures hovered in the mid-50s, and the rain waxed and waned between hopeful moments of blue sky followed by black clouds and water falling in curtains.
The best wildflower display was in a large photo from 2019 of goldfields carpeting a valley hanging in the bathroom of the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant in New Cuyama.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
Truth be told, the best wildflower display we saw during our visit was a 2019 photograph in the restroom of the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant in New Cuyama — a stunning view of California goldfields (Lasthenia californica) growing so vast in the Carrizo Plain during a superbloom that they looked like a golden carpet stretching for miles.
Truth be told, the best wildflower display we saw during our visit was a 2019 photograph in the restroom of the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant.
We did see swaths of goldfields during our soggy trip, along with armies of brown sodden tumbleweeds and pockets of other wildflowers, such as purple owl’s clover (Castilleja exserta), which are actually violet; yellow and white common tidy tips (Layia platyglossa); and (rarely) California poppy (Eschscholzia californica). But the most prominent color was the bright green of California’s hills after a rainy spring.
The tall grass was thick and ripply, like wind on water, and often erupted with birds that flew alongside our car and sometimes outpaced us because Soda Lake Road, the lone paved road, was pocked with gaping potholes and puddles of concerning depth.
A superbloom? Not then and probably not this year, according to the rangers at the Goodwin Education Center at Carrizo Plain. The sign behind the front counter told the story. The last three superbloom years — when wildflowers bloomed so densely that they formed quilts of color over the hills — were in 2017, 2019 and 2023, the rangers said, when the region’s rainfall from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 had, respectively, been 12.29 inches, 16.31 inches and 15.32 inches. So far, the rainfall for 2024’s water year is less than 10 inches — including the unseasonable rain falling April 14 — and more rain this season is not expected.
The sign in the Guy L. Goodwin Education Center shows that the Carrizo Plain’s rainfall this year has been less than in past years with “superblooms” that carpeted the hills.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
The Carrizo Plain superbloom on April 16, 2017.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
Scenes of the Carrizo Plain on April 14, 2024 during a drive on the paved portion of Soda Lake Road in Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County. These days, the plain consists primarily of grasses, with sporadic color.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
The Carrizo Plain stretches 50 miles between the Temblor and Caliente mountains, a grassy plain and drainage basin where Chumash, Yokuts and other Indigenous peoples hunted and traded before settlers tried their hand at dryland farming. There are a few campgrounds, trails and unpaved roads, but no services (such as gas, water, food and, usually, cell). The temperatures often exceed 100 degrees in the summer and dip down to freezing during the winter, according to the brochure. All but one of the roads, Soda Lake Road off Highway 58, are unpaved, and even Soda Lake Road becomes an unpaved, rutted road five miles south of the Goodwin Education Center, which features restrooms and picnic tables, along with books, gifts and exhibits.
Besides birding, camping, hiking and wildflower peeping, you can walk along the San Andreas Fault on the Wallace Creek trail, wander on a platform trail along Soda Lake, which becomes a “dry, salt-encrusted basin during the dry season,” according to the brochure, and study the pictographs left by Native peoples on Painted Rock, which this time of year can be visited only with ranger guides on Saturdays (reservations required).
It poured rain much of the day, and the nonpaved roads were mostly impassable, except for a short road to the visitor center.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
But on Sunday, we couldn’t do any of that because the muddy, unpaved roads were so impassable that even tow trucks were getting stuck, according to rangers. Every few minutes, someone came into the center and asked the same question — is it safe to keep driving south on Soda Lake Road once the pavement ends? And every time, the rangers patiently answered that they definitely wouldn’t recommend any of the unpaved roads for two-wheel-drive cars, or even four-wheel-drive SUVs, unless they had high clearance, nerves of steel and enough money to pay for a tow truck.
The few that braved the back roads drove brawny vehicles that looked like they’d been sloppily dipped into chocolate. As my friend and I wavered about what to do, we spoke with two people who had made the drive. They had a kind of hysterical look and emphatically told us not to try, even though my Toyota Highlander SUV has four-wheel drive. “I can’t believe we made it,” said one wide-eyed woman in a large pickup with mud caked halfway up its windshield. “You’d never get through.”
A few hearty souls were walking in the rain on the platform trail along Soda Lake, but the tiny parking area had so many muddy ruts and puddles that we decided to avoid that too, lest we get stuck. Instead, I grumpily drove back north to California 58 — even though I hate backtracking — and headed east. Our mood quickly improved along this spectacular winding drive through what looked like the verdant, tree-dappled Shire in the Lord of the Rings.
The Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant in New Cuyama. Order the smoked oyster mushroom tacos and check out the bathroom for a gorgeous 2019 superbloom photo.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
After our lovely drive south on 58, we turned west on California 33 near McKittrick, and within a few miles entered a hellscape of bobbing oil pumps and acres of power poles and wires between Derby Acres and Taft. Our destination was New Cuyama for a late lunch-early dinner at the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant on California 166, which runs along the western border of the Carrizo Plain. I heartily recommend this restaurant, which despite its tiny town locale has a sophisticated, upscale bar, wine list and menu (the smoked oyster mushroom tacos with tender blue-corn tortillas — made at the restaurant — are to die for), along with a remodeled hotel.
And when we were done, the clouds were parting, luckily, because our final leg took us west through Los Padres National Forest on California 33, a scenic but winding road where earlier rain had washed out several spots, so we had to stop frequently to wait for a green light to travel along single lanes. The going was beautiful but slow and a little hair-raising as day turned to night.
ABC
“The View” hosts couldn’t contain their excitement a day after Donald Trump was convicted — especially Whoopi Goldberg … who took her sweet time to rub it in on the air.
The actress-comedian — who apparently hasn’t used Trump’s name on the show in years — riled up the crowd at the end of the show … when she repeated “guilty” 34 times in reference to all of DJT’s convictions, for 34 seconds no less.
Fox News
5/30/24
Watch … WG promises fans a quick recap of the trial, before firing off the word “guilty” repeatedly. She’s even forced to yell over the crowd … ’cause they break out in applause.
ABC
Of course, WG’s not the only ‘View’ host who couldn’t hold back … quite literally, ’cause in Joy Behar‘s case, she says started “leaking” when she heard the news in Costco.
ABC
5/1/24
It’s not exactly shocking the ladies are so excited about the conviction … they’ve regularly shared their contempt for the Donald over the years — including last month, when Sunny Hostin blasted Trump for allegedly blasting farts in the courtroom.
As you know … the ex-Prez was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records Thursday after a contentious trial. He’s denied all wrongdoing repeatedly … claiming the justice system’s rigged against him. Trump’s also called out the judge and the prosecution for months leading up to the conviction — and yet, he’s now technically a convicted felon.
Fox News
Sounds like “The View” crew ain’t losing any sleep over it … if anything, they’re fully rejoicing.
For ‘Such Kindness’ novelist Andre Dubus III, chronic pain is a fact of life Dubus talks about the injuries he faced as a carpenter and his relationship with his dad. His a new collection of personal essays is Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin. Originally broadcast in 2023.
Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: We dated for 3 months before moving in together. Were we asking for trouble?
Reeling from an unrequited relationship with a bartender-actor and tired of being a broke substitute teacher-actor, I decided to take a full-time teaching job in Pacoima. I was filled with trepidation and wondered if I was ready to give up my acting dreams to become a junior high English teacher. Like any endeavor that I set my mind to, I gave it my all despite the relentless sarcasm and procrastination of my students.
One day during class, a whole stack of newspapers was delivered to my room. I didn’t order them or want my rowdy students getting their hands on them so they could make paper airplanes and who knows what else. All of a sudden the seventh grade math teacher, Steve, came running into my room looking for that stack of the Los Angeles Times. I asked him to leave me one copy that I could read on my lunch break and told him he could take the rest. Apparently he used them for some kind of financial literacy lesson.
Every week after that, he would bring me one copy. I wanted to believe that Steve’s actions were a cute and kind gesture. But at 30 years old, I was jaded and thought that he was being manipulative as a way of trying to get a date with me. I was both right and wrong.
Because I was the newbie at the school, I wanted to get to know everyone, so I organized a dinner with my colleagues at a fun rock ’n’ roll sushi bar on Lankershim Boulevard. Steve was obsessed with sushi so he attended, and we sat across from each other, vibing to the blaring music and talking and flirting all night. Tokyo Delve’s was just crazy that night with great rock music, and I went wild and danced on the chairs. I hoped that my co-workers — especially Steve — didn’t think I was too overzealous.
At the end of the evening, Steve and I hugged, and later I told our mutual friend, “I think Steve is so cute. Will you give him my number?” He laughed and said he would be happy to play matchmaker.
Steve called the following week and left a voicemail message asking me out for the weekend. I called him back to say yes. Then I didn’t hear anything from him. I thought that this quiet, unassuming teacher would be different from the bad-boy actors and musicians whom I usually dated and that he would actually follow through. I was disappointed, and my mom and I commiserated over the possibility that I had met another noncommittal dude.
It turns out Steve had unexpectedly gone on an adventure with his brother and later apologized to me. I gave him another chance.
I’m so glad I did. After our first date in Pasadena, we were inseparable. We introduced our dogs to each other, and both sets of families got along so well. When my landlord announced that he was selling his home and I would need to move out of the guesthouse, Steve valiantly offered that I could move into his home. But we had only been dating for three months.
Things were tough at first as we didn’t really know how to establish boundaries or communicate well. He hated that I left granules of detergent all over the washer and garage floor. I was exasperated that he could not cook anything at all — not even scrambled eggs!
Those things aside, nobody has made me laugh like Steve does. He’s warm and caring and would do anything for anyone in his life. I once joked early in our relationship: “Wow, you’re mature, kind, responsible and loving, so you must not be the one for me!”
I wasn’t used to being treated with respect and kindness, and he certainly wasn’t used to this crazy, vibrant rock ’n’ roller chick who loved going to concerts at the Forum and the Troubadour and eating pizza at the Rainbow.
We found a way to make our opposites attract and got married on July 8, 2000, at a gorgeous outdoor restaurant in Ojai after three years of dating. Steve’s proposal was cute and unconventional. He got down on one knee and encouraged my little dog, Destiny, to run to me. On her collar was the engagement ring.
Initially we weren’t sure we wanted children but later we decided that we had so much love and compassion to give so we gave it a try. After three brutal miscarriages, we were exhausted physically and emotionally. Many of my friends were having babies and were joyous from creating their new families. It just didn’t seem fair that two strong, loving teachers who gave so much to the world could be so relentlessly devastated for two years.
Steve and I always found Las Vegas to be our special oasis where we could forget about our worries. In January 2002, we stayed at what used to be the Hard Rock Hotel. We bought tickets to see my favorite band, Aerosmith, from the front row at the Joint. It was exhilarating and just what we needed to make ourselves whole again.
As for expanding our family, my OB/GYN suggested taking progesterone for the fourth try. That really would be my last attempt at getting pregnant. It worked and resulted in our beautiful rainbow baby, Logan! She’s now a stunning, feisty, compassionate 21-year-old who gives us indescribable joy.
Steve is retired from teaching, but I found my passion in teaching and still go to work every day trying to instill knowledge and influence the lives of my amazing high school students. I don’t leave the laundry room a mess anymore, and Steve makes the most scrumptious scrambled eggs.
The author is an English teacher at Mission View Public Charter in Valencia. She lives with her husband, daughter Logan (when home from college) and two dogs in Valencia. She’s on Facebook: facebook.com/keri.leiner
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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