Toro Park Wildflowers (Sunshine Day)

Wildflowers have been exploding like fireworks in Monterey County lately, which is as good a reason as any to create little photo tour and share some of the scenery I get to enjoy on a regular basis. It’s also a nice opportunity for me to polish my photojournalism skills in preparation for the races I’ve got coming up - the first of which is this coming weekend. So let's get right to it ...

Our tour begins in Toro Regional Park between Monterey and Salinas, which I wrote about in a photo post from last year. It’s literally right across the street from the Fort Ord open space that I described in the sheep post earlier this month. In other words, if you’re an ultrarunner, this is a pretty sweet place to live.



The wildflowers are so abundant right now that some of the smaller ones are easy to miss. For example, from a distance, these little guys aren’t dense enough or large enough to color the hillside from a distance – but when you look closely, they’re all over the place. I sometimes wonder if they’re jealous of their bigger, more splashy relatives.



These guys always remind me of one of those drinking bird toys … so I call them “drinking birds”, because I have no idea what their real name is. (I know, I could look it up – but I kind of like my drinking bird name. It fits, don’t you think?)




Purple was kind of the theme of the day out here, as these lupines can attest. At least, I think they’re purple - more on that in a second.



Having dense lupine on either side of a steep trail doesn’t necessarily make the climb any easier … but sometimes it helps make the pain more enjoyable. If that makes any sense.



Here’s what I mean about the color ambiguity: my wife is convinced that my blue and purple wires are crossed somewhere in my optic nerve. We’ve had probably a thousand disagreements about intermediate shades like this, where I’ll say something is blue, and she’ll say purple – or vice versa. This lupine picture hasn’t been altered; I say it looks purple. But if you call it blue, I guess we can still get along.



Further up the hill, the yellow flowers (they’re definitely yellow, right?) start muscling out the purple/blue ones. This is also where the 1600’ of climbing it takes to get here really starts paying off – as evidenced by the killer view of the Salinas Valley in the background.



Of course, runners always have to share these pastures of heaven in Toro Park with the land’s namesake residents, who also seem to have a knack for lounging around the prettiest spots with the most breathtaking views. Really, can you blame them?



Every time I see the cows in a setting like this on a beautiful sunshine day, I half expect them to break out in song, like these gals:



(The clip above is from one of the funniest ad campaigns of all time – which I’ll write more about in my next post).


Unfortunately, I can never tell if the cows are really happy or not. Take Cow 84 here – what emotions does her face reveal? Contentment? Peace? Indifference? Irritation from the annoying clown trying to take her picture? She certainly doesn’t look ecstatic – although perhaps that #84 tag has something to do with it. That’s probably not a lotto ticket on her ear.




After a few minutes, it’s time to bid my bovine friends farewell and venture back down the hill. I must say, the cows never seem to miss me when I’m gone.




It’s totally spoiled to say this … but by this point of the run, scenes like this start blending together. More purple, more yellow, more beauty, yada yada yada. Just another run in paradise.



Off of the hilltops and into the canyons on the descent, the prominent flowers give way to the little guys again, such as these purple sweeties. (They are purple, right? Just checking.)

Eventually I make my way back to the car and head off for the rest of my day, which inevitably seems mundane compared to the experience I’ve just enjoyed. I’m not sure what it says about me that all it takes is a short run amidst a few flowers and cows to make me happy for the rest of the day … but whatever it is, I hope I can stay this way, and enjoy these moments, for a long time to come.

See other photo tours on inside-right sidebar.