Spring is Here!

Soda Lake

I find that with every year, spring has been my least favorite season. To be fair, my allergies these past couple of weeks have definitely spiked. I wake up, sneeze, use boxes upon boxes of tissues, and am extremely worn out when I've reached the end of my day. However, this time around, I have been enjoying the spring weather. Although we've had a couple of rain days, it's been so nice to have the sun come out. Since I've started working at evolation yoga, I get a view of the sea almost every evening and it's just absolutely breathtaking. I think another factor is that I have been more passionate about my photography hobby lately so all of the bright colors that spring has brought really encourages me to go out and explore a little more.

A path from Soda Lake

This season, I decided to visit the Carrizo Plain National Monument with my mom. It's exactly what it sounds like. The Carrizo Plains are plains that reside about 30 to 45 minutes outside of Santa Margarita, a really tiny town that's near San Luis Obispo. I saw that beside Figueroa Mountain and Grass Mountain, the Carrizo Plains was the next nearest place to go to see California's super bloom. I read a bunch of articles that said it was just out of San Luis Obispo so I expected the drive to be a little more than two hours and 30 minutes... When I pulled out my Waze app and entered in the destination, I found out it was three hours and 39 minutes away from my house... I was about to drive this nearly four hour drive (my mom promised to go only if I drove) to see flowers.

So, we made a whole day trip out of it. Woke up on Sunday morning, left the house at 9:00 AM, stopped in Pismo Beach to enjoy some of the famous Splash Cafe's Clam Chowder and walk part of the pier. By this time, it was about 1:00 PM and we were trying to catch Golden Hour at the Carrizo Plains—7:00 PM. Six hours to kill... I had heard about the Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo and have always been curious about it. So that was out next stop! I was pretty excited. I asked my mom for two sticks of mint gum and chewed on them while we walked over to the alleyway. And once we were there... let's just say it's a lot cooler in photos!

Bubblegum Alley

Afterwards, we stopped at Target to grab some road trip and picnic grubs and finally drove out to our final destination. Once we arrived, I took a 45 minute nap in the car to rest up for the return home. 5:00 PM hit and my mom and I got out of the car to start shooting! There's a lake called Soda Lake there, which I learned was really shallow and usually there's no water, but I think because of the rain, we were lucky enough to see it sort of filled. There were so many flowers... Medium purple ones, tiny yellow flowers, and tall, white petaled flowers that lived on the hillside of the lake's lookout point.

About 900 photos later... my mom and I were all tired out and finally drove home. Arrived at 9:30 PM and ready to sleep. I'm so grateful for California!

See you next post,

Chey

Currently listening to No Make Up by Zion.T