It’s Sunday morning, while we were still in bed, I told William that today we’d go to the yellow flower fields. Knowing that he does not like flowers, I told him to choose. “We’re going to the flower fields, if you don’t want to go, you can stay home with aunt Lily; Mama & Papa will go alone. Do you want to go with Mama & Papa or you want to stay home?” – Of course his answer is “Yes, I want to go”. Prime him ahead most of the time works out fine; I guess when he knows what to expect, he less likely to have behaviors for activities that he does not like.
Tim just had the Covid-19 vaccine shot yesterday morning. He felt tired and asleep until noon. William asked me several times, “Are we going or not?”. I told him “Papa is not feeling well so we might not going”. Around 3:00 PM, he asked again; Tim woke up by this time so I told William to go to the bed room and ask if Papa wanted to go. William ran in and I heard him asked “Papa, are we going to see the flowers?”.
It was the first time ever that we saw him so eager to go out to the flower fields. He hates flowers, he has never wanted to go near any flowers. Last week we went to see the mustard flowers in San Juan Capistrano, he insisted to sit in the car and refused to go out.
So we loaded up with some water and chips/cookies and soon on our way to Chino Hills State Park, where we heard that the mustard flowers are all blooming beautifully this week.
It took about 1 hour to get there: it was so crowded, a long line of cars after cars waiting to get to the park entrance, I guess because everyone wanted to see what nature has to offer. We saw lots of people walking back to their cars that parked along the road with sweat on their face: it was a sunny day and probably it was a long hike for them.
As we approached the park entrance, it was such a beautiful scene open before our eyes: hills and hills full of yellow flowers! Under the bright sunlight the yellow flowers were even shinier! William seemed so excited! When the ranger stopped us to give us some instructions: the road is narrow, with lots of people walking, so drive slow and safely. William said “OK” to each of his instruction!
The park entrance is $5.00 which is not bad at all. The road up hill is indeed narrow but lots and lots of flowers along the road. It’s such a beautiful landscape that no words can describe. Whenever we stopped to take the pictures, William would get out of the car and ran around. Whenever he gets excited like this, he does not care about his safety. He’d run around in the parking lot which almost gave me a heart attack of worrying some cars might hit him. He’s very fast, it’s hard to catch up with him.
We drove all the way to the end, and told him we’d hike a bit. He jumped out of the car and so ready to hike! It was the first time ever that he’s willing to hike around the flowers without complaining! I think he was just bored of staying home :).
The park closes at 7:00 PM so we headed out; we stopped at this most beautiful view point on the way out. William was still so excited that he was running around. I love to see him this happy!
He felt asleep for about 15 minutes on the way home. I’d be tired if I run around that much too.
Chino Hills State Park
4721 Sapphire Rd, Chino Hills, CA 91709
Open: 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
$5.00 park entrace
There’s lots of hiking trails so wear comfortable shoes. I heard there’s rattle snakes here so be carefull.