Tag: park

Beautiful Wildflowers

Posted on by MICHELLE N

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.

Carrizo Plain National Monument

Posted on by Moonie
Gold flowers field near the Goodwin Education Center on the Soda Lake Rd.

Saturday Apr 8 – 9, 2017

It has been raining a lot in California that the wild flowers are blooming every where, the press calls it “Super Bloom”; it has been so long that we have a good wild flowers year so we decided to check out Carrizo Plain National Monument where people say that the flowers are in full bloom.  It’s a 4 hours drive from Santa Ana so we decided to stay 1 night in some town near Carrizo Plain so that William would not feel tired of too much driving.  I booked the hotel in Santa Maria town without knowing that there’s no road that goes from Soda Lake Rd to 166 thus we had to drive a big circle to get to our hotel in Santa Maria (58 –> 101)

Avila beach, on the way to our hotel in Santa Maria

Spend 1 night in Santa Maria @Best Western Plus, right off on freeway 101 on Broadway st.

Saturday, left house around 6:20 AM, William woke up when we carried him to the car and would not go back to sleep.  First stop is at Gorman (there’s no wild flowers at all on the hills) to have breakfast at Carl’s Jr..  Continue driving on 5 N – 166 W – Soda Lake Rd to enter the Carrizo Plain National Monument on the South entrance.  There were not that many flowers on the south of the park, lots more flowers at the north of the park.  We drove along the Soda Lake Rd, then stopped by the Goodwin Education Center for some information.  They said the best flowers found on the Elkhorn road.  But it was 3 PM and we didn’t have much gas left so we decided to go to the hotel and visit Elkhorm Rd tomorrow.  Lunch time William refused to eat the spaghetti soup that we heated up using a small slow cooker plugged into the cigaret plug, so I gave him a bottle of water and then he felt asleep.

Our room 226 at Best Western Plus hotel

To get to the hotel we’d have to take 58 and then 101, it’s about 2 hours drive; but along the 101 we stopped at the Avila Beach and Pismo beach so the drive didn’t feel that long. From Avila town, before going back to 101 free way to get to the hotel, we stopped by a McDonald, bought some chicken nuggets and Strawberry Banana smoothie, Moca Frap because I thought William might be hungry.  William only ate 1 chicken nugget but he ate lots of fries.  I tried to feed him the smoothie but he preferred the Moca Frap better.   There’s no gas or restaurants along the 58 but it’s a very nice curvy road along the mountain.  Finally we got to the hotel around 7 PM. William loved the bed, he climbed on it when we first got in.  Our room was 226, at the end, on the 2nd floor.  Pool and Spa is under construction so no access at this time.  Gave William a good warm bath, then we fed him spaghetti soup, he finished the whole can.  Tim & I had a quick diner: instant noodle.

South entrance to Carrizo Plain, we entered from 166 and made a turn on Soda lake Rd.

Next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, left the hotel around 8:30 AM, stopped by a Mexican market near by to get a pack of hot dogs and jello for William because yesterday he didn’t eat the spaghetti soup; and there’s no foods sold inside the park.  We chose 101 – 166 – Soda lake road – Elkhorn road.  So we started at the South entrance again and then made a right turn which is next to the information stand to get to the Elkhorn Rd.  The road is uphill and then down hill.  It’s a dirt road so whenever a car pass by, dirt is all over the place.   No internet service, no phone signal, no GPS, no maps so we were kinda lost after a while driving because we were not sure if we were on Elkhorn road or not.  Lucky for us we met some nice people camping along the way, they gave us a map and told us to keep going.  William at this time is too tired of sitting in the car seat so I let him out to sit next to me; our car was moving very slowly so I would not think that would be dangerous to William.  Finally we reached the destination the we were looking for: hills filled with purple and yellow flowers.  We made a right turn to the parking area to get closer to the hills.  Here I met my friends Phuoc & Hanh and their little 3 year old boy Minh.  Then I hiked 1 hour further into the hill sides while Tim stayed in the car to watch William; he was sleeping.

The next crowded spot: Wallace Creek; lots of people stopped by this place and hiking on the trails.  The hills were filled with lots of flowers than other previous hills at that we stopped at.  William was now awake and didn’t look happy so we didn’t stay long at this location.

Continue on the Elkhorn road and make a right turn to get to freeway 58, we were surprised to see lots of yellow flowers along the road and the hills.  We stopped here and took a few pictures and then headed home because it was getting late.

William was so happy at In and Out burger, he kept sitting on the table!

Stopped by the In and Out burger at the The Outlets of Tejon to fill up gas and have dinner.  William must be hungry because he ate some piece of burger with cheese and lots of fries.  He especially loved the lemonade.  We got home about 9:30 PM.  William ran straight to bed, happily sat on the bed and play with his toys.

There was lots of driving in this trip but this was the first time that I’ve seen so many flowers in my life.  They’re so beautiful and Tim was so nice to watch the boy and encourage me to hike to watch flowers if I want to.  Thank you hubby!