Where the Wildflowers Are

I love traveling along Highway 12 past Suisun City in Solano County, especially days after a good, hard rain which turns the landscape into undulating verdant hills and pastures where livestock graze peacefully. Hidden amongst this bucolic scenery, is a local gem known as the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City, which I discovered by happenstance some years earlier. During April of each year, the Museum hosts a wonderful event where, for a nominal entrance fee, wildflower enthusiasts can take an hour-long, 10-mile trip on one of the Museum’s vintage trains, to catch views of native wildflowers (e.g., consisting primarily of poppies, goldfields, brass buttons, butter and eggs, clover, and sheep’s sorrel) that blanket the hillsides and fields of Solano County. The tours are docent-led and views change weekly, depending upon what is in bloom. My past experience on this tour has been that the train will stop at an appropriate juncture to allow visitors to exit and wander alongside the fields to take photographs and to examine the wildflowers up-close. The window to catch this glorious display of wildflowers is short-lived, as the tours begin on April 3, 2013 and run until April 28, 2013. I recently visited the general vicinity in which these tours take place, and at least as of the posting of this blog entry, there did not seem to be many wildflowers yet on display, but that will quickly change, so consider making your plans now. For additional information about the various tours, times, and ticket prices, please visit (http://www.wrm.org/).

Some flowers in bloom along the roadside by these pastures which will soon be covered with a multitude of blooming California native wildflowers. photos by Betty Homer

In a few short days or weeks, pastures such as these in Solano County, will be blanketed with glorious displays of California native wildflowers, some of which are coming into bloom, even if it is not obvious from the photograph.