Deanna, a best friend from grade school, is in Southern California but on her way to a Dodgers game three hours north, on a good traffic day. We decided to visit The Flower Fields, but if you’re not careful and skip “The”, Google Maps will direct you to an apartment complex six miles away instead.

It was a great way to spend the afternoon, but any photographer could spend a day or two capturing the different colorful angles, watching the lighting change, the bugs as they come and go, and the couples and families smiling with an array of bright blooms behind them. There’s something magical about seeing yellow varieties of Chinese peony, African marigold, and California poppy living as neighbors.

Albert Ecke and his family emigrated from Germany in 1900 and started growing poinsettias in Los Angeles. In 1919, his second son, Paul, took over the family business. In 1920, he was shipping large quantities across the country. In 1923, the farm was relocated to Carlsbad. In 1963, under Paul Jr., the poinsettias were able to grow as potted plants and became a living symbol of the holiday season.

In 1992, Paul III took over the industry before he was 40 after obtaining a degree in horticulture and an MBA after several years in production management. Nearly 120 million poinsettia pots are sold each year, in the US alone, but this wasn’t enough to maintain the family business, which was bought out by an international company in 2012.

We cover a few miles on foot and reward ourselves with popcorn and strawberry lemonade on this gray sky day, which doesn’t diminish the abundance of petals and poses on this 50-acre property. There is also an American flag of almost 19,000 petunias to maintain the dimensions established in 1959 via an executive order after Hawaii became the 50th state.

I average about one hundred photos an hour, favoring the pink poppy anemone, before we make the drive to Balboa ER. Caleb gets a chest x-ray to confirm a sprained rib, caused by repetitive strain, that can cause pain along with difficulty breathing. He is sent home with an incentive spirometer (an inhalation exerciser) and some lidocaine patches.

We park down the street from Salud! and after tacos, we stop at Art Hub, a shared space for displaying and selling creations on paper, glass, clay, metal, wood, cotton, etc. We pick up root beer and ice cream on the way home and finish the day with a book in bed.