Snacks, Scenery, and Sunshine Spell Success

My recipe for a successful day trip includes a sunny day, plentiful snacks, and a road trip partner who will endure — and even encourage — a plethora of photo pit stops. I had all that plus my canine sidekick, Scout, along for a recent visit to Carrizo Plain National Monument.

There are a couple of route options to get from Santa Barbara to Carrizo, and it’s about a three-hour drive either way: north to Santa Margarita and over Highway 58 to the upper entrance of the monument, or down through Ojai and Highway 33 to the south entrance. Either direction makes a lovely loop with varied views and terrain. We chose to take Highway 101 up the coast to start our trek, giving us the beach/mountains/plains trifecta all in the same day.

It was foggy as we left town, but as we crested the Nojoqui Grade and headed down into the valley, the clouds parted and the mist gave way to blue skies in one of those magical Technicolor Disney moments. Cachuma was fuller than I’ve ever seen it, and the hills were amazingly green.

After a coffee stop in San Luis Obispo, we turned off the 101 and drove through adorable downtown Santa Margarita. The town itself quickly gave way to pastoral hills with photogenic cows lazily munching grass. It’s possible that I asked for a couple of photo stops before we even entered the monument. At this leisurely pace, it took us four hours to get to the northern entrance of the monument. We didn’t mind.

At 38 miles long and 17 miles wide, the Carrizo Plain is surrounded by mountains and bisected by the San Andreas Fault, whose influence is seen in the landscape. We were greeted with layers of undulating hills and fields of wildflowers. While not exactly the neon rainbows that you may have seen online, there was plenty of color. Throughout the day we observed poppies, lupine, yellow fiddlenecks, and miles of goldfields dotted with purple owl’s clover. We also encountered fields of tidy tips, and the brashly named common hillside daisies, which looked anything but common to me.

One of our first stops was Soda Lake, one of the dominant landmarks of the plain. A trail flanked by patches of four-foot-tall larkspur led out towards the flat, salty lakebed that mirrored the distant mountains. Recent rains had saturated the ground, and the closer we got to the lake itself, the deeper our feet sank into the quicksand-like terrain. Since the day was young, we didn’t get too close. No need for soggy shoes on an all-day adventure.

We hopped from one picturesque spot to another, letting my plentiful requests for photo ops guide our itinerary. Scout loved the stop-and-go journey. Lots of short walks with new smells each time, interspersed with plenty of nap time in her fluffy backseat pup perch.

We stopped at the visitors’ center to see if the rangers would divulge any can’t-miss secret spots. Their recommendations for the best wildflower viewing matched our intended route, so we continued down past Travers Ranch.

The restrooms at the visitors’ center are the only facilities in the National Monument, and signs reminded us that there are no services: Visitors need to plan for food, water, and gas accordingly. Hence our plentiful snacks. Rather than try to picnic with one big meal, we went for a gourmet grazing strategy. Each time we stopped, we would bring something new from the cooler in the back of the car, each pit stop making our movable feast more delectable.

While we didn’t have a sighting of the magnificent pronghorn antelopes that dwell in the plain, we were entertained by the birds and, to my surprise, the insects. Large fuzzy beetles clumped together on tall stalks of fiddlenecks, bending them forward with their combined weight. And scores of fuzzy brown caterpillars rushed back and forth across our path, mimicking pedestrians scurrying across a street.

Unsurprisingly, our favorite segment of the trip was an impromptu turn down an unmarked dirt road. Our ability to maneuver the rutted grooves of a finger route up a hill led us to the best view of the day, both up close and far over the plain. Aside from some sprint van campers, we were alone as far as we could see.

As we continued down the last stretch of the plain, we had snowy mountain peaks ahead in the distance, acting as an almost literal icing on top of an unbelievably gorgeous day.

I was recently introduced to theologian Tony Jones, who describes the magic of wild places; how replacing the hectic pace of our high-tech world with simple pleasures like hiking and camping can inspire inner peace. While a road trip isn’t exactly roughing it, the wide-open spaces of the plain imbued feelings of calm and delight that have persisted long past that day. Scout enjoyed extra naps for days afterward to give it her seal of approval, too.

For more information on the Carrizo Plain National Monument, including current wildflower conditions and maps, see blm.gov.