California
Wildflowers in California just a short drive away: Here are nearby Instagram-worthy spots
Spring, even in drought years, is the time for California wildflowers to burst forth in their finery.
We start our search with our local rivers and their tributaries, looking north to south: the American River, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Calaveras and Stanislaus rivers. Follow those river valleys east into Sierra foothills, linking to Gold Rush sites, cute towns with mining and logging history, and restaurants and watering holes perfect for a midday layover.
Keep in mind the factors that lead to magnificent flower displays; adequate recent rainfall, elevation (Delta wildflowers will be blooming long before those in higher Sierra locations), daytime temperatures and exposure to sunlight (flowers on river valley sides facing south will bloom long before shadier locations).
Let’s hit the trail, depending upon your destination and springtime temperatures, you will find California poppies, fiddleneck, lupine, Indian paintbrush, purple vetch, blue dick, western redbud and a host of other varieties.
How to take the best wildflower photos
Take tools for exploration, in addition to camera and binoculars. Download smartphone apps like AllTrails or TrailLink for finding hiking trails, and LeafSnap, a wonderful app that IDs wildflowers and trees; making you an instant botanical wizard. Follow the etiquette of explorers: don’t pick the flowers, stay on existing trails and don’t trample flower fields. It may be inviting to photograph your pals lounging in lovely flower displays, but don’t. Pack out all your trash, leaving only footprints and taking only memories.
For the fabled American River, where gold was discovered in 1848 in Coloma on the South Fork, start in Sacramento with the American River Parkway, a 35 mile paved biking and hiking trail, that heads upriver eastward into the Folsom Lake State recreation area. You’ll find wildflowers in many rocky places, including the immense piles of cobblestones that remain from the dredge mining that took place along the river until the mid-1900s.
Fields of California poppies blooming near historic bridges
Perhaps our most spectacular discovery came one year ago, with the additional discovery of a grand historic suspension bridge. From Sacramento, we followed Interstate 80 almost to Colfax, and went east on Iowa Hill Road to the North Fork of the American where the new bridge parallels the old Iowa Hill suspension bridge, circa 1928, with hiking and flower-finding opportunities stretching along the river.
We found the mother lode of California poppies on the Windy Point Trail, 1½ miles up the other side of the valley. A two-mile hike took us into 20+ acres of California poppies just above the American, a spectacular golden blanket of color. A few miles further east is Iowa Hill, where over $20 million in gold was mined in the 30 years after 1853.
For the Cosumnes River, a natural place to start is the Cosumnes River Preserve, just north of Thornton, with 4 miles of easy walking trails along both the Cosumnes and Mokelumne rivers. Here you’ll find a large variety of waterfowl, as well as wildflowers including California poppies, Indian paintbrush, purple vetch and more. Pack a picnic lunch, take your binoculars and enjoy peaceful hours!
The preserve’s trails lead you down to the Cosumnes and the Mokelumne Rivers, through riparian forest teaming with birds as well as wildflowers in season. Here in 1862, epic Valley floods wiped out San Joaquin County’s second largest city and port, Mokelumne City, washing all its wooden buildings miles downstream into the Delta (the city was never rebuilt).
Further east along the Cosumnes, just above Rancho Murieta, follow the old Michigan Bar Road across the old bridge into gently-rolling foothills and turn east on S. Shingle Road (be forewarned, a road where high clearance is an asset); we found lots of wildflowers last spring.
Visiting California Gold Rush towns
Journey east to the upper Mokelumne River; at Pardee Reservoir; cross the old dam and follow the beautiful Stony Creek Road east up to Jackson. Stony Creek is a favorite, scenic in its own right, as you cross the creek on the new bridge — be very observant — and spot the old Jackson Creek Bridge, built 1880, abandoned in 1955.
It’s slowly moldering away just down the creek, hidden in foliage. Continue up the steep road, then descend into Jackson, a well-preserved gold rush town. Take in the old National Hotel and other historic sites on Water Street. Touring south on Highway 49, approaching the Mokelumne, go east on Electra Road, where fields of bright orange poppies grace south-facing hillsides.
Don’t overlook our local Calaveras River; a fine place to start is the bike trail that runs from University of Pacific to Brookside, where a wide variety of wildflowers can be found. Hike the trail that runs down the Calaveras behind Brookside’s grand homes, and imagine the river as it was 150 years ago.
Finally, check out the Stanislaus River, and its historic Knights Ferry Covered Bridge. The town was founded when gold was discovered; in 1849, Dr. William Knight established a ferry. Soon after, a toll bridge was built but washed away in the huge flood of 1862. The new bridge was finished in 1864, higher and built to last, the longest covered bridge in the state at 333 feet. It’s now part of a lovely state park, its trails perfect for seeking wildflowers. Knights Ferry features a number of historic buildings; fun to walk the old gold rush-era remnant.
Remember that these rivers flow into the San Joaquin and Sacramento River Delta, and the Delta has many special places. A recent discovery, using the AllTrails app, is the Delta Meadows Trail between Locke and Walnut Grove, which take hikers several miles into Delta waterways much is they looked 150 years earlier.
For insight: historic bridges, bridgehunter.com hikes, AllTrails or TrailLink apps wildflowers, LeafSnap app.
Contact Tim, tviall@msn.com; happy travels in the west!
California
Man charged with murder, kidnapping their 5-year-old child before fleeing to Mexico
A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.
Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.
On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.
Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.
Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.
The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.
The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.
California
23andMe Sued by California Over Massive 2023 Data Breach
California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.
Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.
“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint.
The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web.
“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”
A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.
23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.
California
Newsom signs law to shield California elections from federal interference
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed legislation Wednesday that aims to shield California elections from federal interference, saying he expected Donald Trump’s administration to try to meddle in the midterms this year.
The law, which took effect immediately and came days before next Tuesday’s primary, prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order. Law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.
Trump administration officials so far have said they have no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations across the US, a concern raised this year by several Democratic secretaries of state. But Newsom warned “we have to be prepared for everything” because “there’s no rules any more with the Trump administration”.
Voting is already under way in California’s closely watched primary for governor, where a crowded field of Democrats and two viable Republicans are vying for just two spots on the November ballot. Under the state’s open primary system, only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Newsom, who cannot seek a third term, said the election law is a response to “legitimate anxiety” about Trump’s tactics, primarily in Democratic-led states, where the president has deployed federal agents over the objections of local leaders. The Democratic governor warned against underestimating someone who “doesn’t believe in free and fair elections”.
“I expect the worst with Trump because he’s done the worst,” he said at a news conference.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press later Wednesday that Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.
“Instead of levying false attacks at the President, Newscum should look in the mirror,” she said in a statement, using Trump’s derogatory nickname for Newsom.
In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, knocked down the idea that Trump would deploy the military to suppress voting, saying it was “categorically false”.
The California law also makes it a crime to knowingly take voted ballots out of the custody of election officials.
Earlier this year, the FBI under Trump seized the 2020 general election ballots from Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and has long been at the center of the president’s false claims that fraud cost him the race. The FBI and justice department also have sought records from previous elections in the largest counties in Arizona and Michigan.
Trump triggered a national redistricting frenzy ahead of the midterms when he urged Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw their US House districts to help the party retain control of the closely divided chamber. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could benefit Republicans, and Louisiana is expected to be next.
Republicans so far think they could gain as many as 14 seats from redistricting in November, while Democrats think they could gain six in California and Utah.
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