#095. Go on 15 "new to us" dates with M (1 of 15)

M and my dating pattern is pretty standard:  Go out to eat on Saturday night.  The End.  We are oh so original, I know.  Pretty much the key to his heart is through good food (ie a juicy steak with a side of potatoes in his world).  Trying to break out of this habit has been a slow going process.

Way back in April, M and I (me begging, him obliging) headed out on a Sunday afternoon to check out the wildflowers in full bloom.  The original plan was to take his antique car, but he wasn't really in the mood so we compromised:  sans the antique car and add the antique dog.  Yup, we decided to take Miss Molly the Wonderdog (as in wonder why we kept her) along with us so she wouldn't have to spend the whole day home alone.

Old girl knows how to ride in style.

First up were the California Poppies.  Our plan was to head to the Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, CA, but as we drove up to the gate we were met with a No Pets Allowed sign which clearly wasn't going to work.  We headed back down the road to an amazing field we had passed just minutes before and got out to walk around and take some pictures.  The place was packed, but the view was incredible.  I have no idea why we hadn't done this before and know we will most definitely do it again next spring.

From there we headed a round about way to go north on I-5 toward Gorman.  Stopping wasn't really feasible, but there was so much to see.  The windows went down and I took some shots at full 75-ish mph motion. 

First the view from the freeway was full of beautiful fields of green...

which soon became speckled in orange, purple, and yellow for awhile.

And there were briefly some spots of brown and grey.

Then the yellow took over.

Really took over.  I so wished we could have stopped and snooped around this shed.  I was in love with the patchwork design from the road and think there was potential for some fun shots.

After a whole lot of driving to a destination that now slips my mind (but is okay because we never did find it), I requested a roadside stop to hop a fence for a little trespassing action in a farmer's field to get a better view of these.

These guys didn't seem to mind.

I so just wanted to swim in these...

But this one had obviously had enough (as had the person attached to her leash).

So homeward bound it was.