Back from the poppy reserve

Regular readers will recall that my SO and I had been planning a two-day trip to Death Valley, primarily so we could see the wildflowers there. However, we ran into one little snag: we couldn't find a place to stay. Every hotel we called in both Beatty (in Nevada, east of the park) and Lone Pine (in California, west of the park) was booked. The campground in the park that took reservations was also booked, and based on message board posts we read it seemed like the only campground that was likely to have any spots available was one with 1,000 campsites, and even that one was more than half full only a few days ago.

Since we didn't like the sound of camping next to 500+ other people, we decided to go see the flowers at the Antelope Valley California Wind Poppy Reserve. There were lots of wildflowers and animals about, so it was a fun day, even with the nearly constant gale-force winds. I took a bunch of pictures, but it's been a long day of driving and windblown hiking, so the pictures will be posted tomorrow at the earliest.