cTv RV Life – Drone hunting Wildflowers at Arvin and Lebec, California

Michael – What – travel 400+ miles to hunt flowers growing in the wild at Arvin and Lebec? Yeah, sometimes it’s wise for a husband to pick up a few “atta boys” and get a chance to fly his drone! Turned out to be an awesome 3 day RV Life trip with spectacular wildflowers so we extended an extra day, going South ANOTHER 100+ miles! Stay tuned – we have two more stops in future shows…

Grace – When we were coming home from San Diego early in February I had told Michael how I have always wanted to return to Gorman in the springtime. I had gone through in 2009 very briefly and had seen all the wildflowers along the grapevine. Since that time it has been on my bucket list to return.  He wasn’t entirely convinced “wildflowers” themselves were worth driving over 6 hours.  Little by little I would bring it up again and revisit this notion.  One of two things may have happened.  1)He got tired of hearing it and gave in.  2) (which is probably the most likely) he loves me and wants to make me happy. Whatever the reason, the RV was loaded and packed to go and on Friday morning we would leave at 430 am to beat the traffic and congestion of the morning commute in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I had done my homework and scouted out the best places to go for wildflowers and a place to stay in the otherwise dubbed, Peace Valley. Often as Michael drives I will read from Wikipedia different tidbits about our destination.  We learned about the Christo “Umbrella Art Project” that took place in the early 90’s.  The visual of over 3,000 large umbrellas covering the landscape of the Tejon Mountains must of been an incredible site. (more on that here:  http://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=the-umbrellas)  Our first stop would take us to a little town called Arvin.  Just at the beginning on the north-side of the grapevine.  As we went up the road we could see all the farmland below.  Overall it was a pretty clear day and a great day for some drone footage.  A little later we come to a big patch of lupine and  further down the road we would find our beloved state flower the brightly colored poppies as well.  Michael took Kaliki for a nice walk as I knelt, bent and twisted my body into weird positions to take picture after picture.  It was actually a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70’s.  The air smelt so clean and fresh and my spirit was content.  Next we wanted to check into Pyramid Lake – Los Alamos Campground in Lebec as it was getting close to 4:00 pm already and it was on a “first come, first serve” basis type of campground.  We went through Gorman on our way to the campsite and could see big patches of yellow and big patches of orange along the steep hillsides.  When we got to camp it was almost empty so our worries of not getting a place to stay for the night were groundless.  The camp host believed we had probably come to late for most of the lupine as she believed that they had all been spraying a few days before to keep the weeds down. A couple days later at the Gorman State Park we learned from the park ranger that we were actually to early as they hadn’t really started blooming yet.  Michael and I concluded they bloom at different times depending on the altitude.   Here in Gorman at 4000 feet it hadn’t been long the hills were still covered in snow.  Anyway I regress back to our campsite.  It was a beautiful and peaceful spot and we couldn’t resist pouring ourselves a glass of wine and just hanging out for the night. Perhaps watch the sunset and dance under the stars in .  OK so truth be told we were sleeping before the stars came out, but sometimes that’s ok too.

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Super Bloom above Firebaugh Californian
Super Bloom above Firebaugh California

Recommended sizes and crops may vary, feel free to email us with any questions.

Next up: cTv RV Life – Wildflower Super-bloom, Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, drone video 

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