Linnea Bullion is a Los Angeles-based photographer, writer, and art director. Follow Linnea on Instagram.
The official Bureau of Land Management website calls the Carrizo Plain National Monument "one of the best kept secrets in California." It used to be that even during a great bloom year you'd only pass a few other cars. But in recent years multiple major news outlets have covered the area's tendency to superbloom. While it is slightly buffered by its out-of-the-wayness, the secret is out.
The first time I visited Carrizo Plain National Monument was in August 2015. I can't tell you much about that first trip, only that it felt wonderfully quiet and lonesome. It was hot and dry and brown. The plain itself is a long expanse of grassland, edged by modest, sloping ridges. It's remote, and most of the year it feels desolate.
Back then, I road-tripped more often. I was young, broke, and always eager to escape the 600-square-foot two-bedroom in Los Angeles that I shared with a roommate with whom I frequently didn't get along. Gas felt cheap, even by California standards. So I left, as regularly as I could. It was my first year in The Golden State, and I was as awestruck by the mountains on the horizon then as I still am now (I hail from Minnesota, where no natural landmark is ever visible from a distance). I have since returned to Carrizo many times; I once even totaled my car there––though that's a story for another time.