The snowy mountains on the background are our San Gabriel mountains, only here seen from the other side. The foreground is Saddleback Butte State Park, a haven for Joshua trees and animal life in the Antelope Valley.

To get there, just as fast as the freeway but certainly more fun, we followed the CA-2/Angeles Crest Highway, off the 210 West.  The CA-2 goes up into the Los Angeles Forest, becomes Sierra Highway, and eventually turns into the 138 to Palmdale.  On the way, the view of the San Gabriel Valley is gorgeous, and at night time is a light show. 

The road up the mountain last Friday evening was icy at the top.  We saw two cars crashed upside down! one of them had passed us just a few minutes before.  [The moral of the story: have fun, but be careful.  Driving up and down the mountain is not the same as driving on the Wal Mart parking lot.  Be attentive to changes on the road, to water, to ice, to debris, to rain, to other drivers, and so on.]  While being careful, using this beautiful road you can make it from the L.A. area to a complete different scene, in about one hour and ten minutes.

That Friday night we went to El Dorado, a club in Palmdale that advertised on the web its 'Friday Latin night', with Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue, etc.  Rather pricey, we paid $25 at the door for both David and I , and it turned out to be a mix of 80% cumbia, 10% quebradita, and the other 10% a blend of reggaeton, merengue and one, yes literally ONE, Salsa song.  I can't really say anything bad about the place, it is big enough, comfortable enough, with good enough service.  The price I assume the result of being THE place to be in Palmdale  -- if there's no competition I guess one can charge away! --  but it just wasn't my music.  It was only 'ok' for me, and perhaps mostly because I was in good company.

At any rate, the real fun began the following morning, when we headed to Saddleback Butte State Park, which is 17 miles east of Lancaster, on Avenue J East.  We followed the 'nature walk', just a half-mile hike, enjoyed the view, read for a while, paid the $5 for parking, which never hurts because it goes towards the upkeep of our beautiful parks, and saw some really serious Sierra Club hikers getting ready for what I'm sure was not simply the half-mile hike.

After a while we headed towards the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve on 110th St, at the intersection with Ave I, in Lancaster, just about half-hour driving West of Saddleback Park.  The Poppy Reserve is just that, a place where thousands of Poppy flowers grow in the spring to make the area look like a beautiful orange carpet. Right now there are only a few early flowers sprinkled about, just like the one in the picture I took, but in May the place will look like this other picture by John Grossman.  Is this gorgeous or what? Definitely something to do in the season coming up!

The Reserve has several hiking trails.  We followed the half-mile one [again], called 'Godde Hill, Tehachapi Vista Point".  The view from up there, 360 degrees of it, is fantastic.  It's not the same on a video clip, but you can get an idea with the one below.  [Give it a bit to load.]  I can't wait to see it all again in May, dressed up in the color of the sun.

Anyways folks, these are two lovely places to visit. Give them a try.  Just over an hour away from us.  Are we Angelinos ever lucky!

[video removed]

Here's some more pictures... Enjoy!