It dawned on me after we’d returned from another 200-mile Covid-19 Escape that I hadn’t written a trip report in some time.

This Covid-Escape wasn’t as adventurous as most. It required an hour’s drive east from Bakersfield into the Greenhorn Mountains where we met our friends, experienced amateur botanists, at the Shirley Meadows ski slope. From there, we threaded our way down a graded Forest Service road in search of the rare Greenhorn Fritillary (Fritillaria brandegeei).

Since air travel was prohibited during the pandemic, we took the opportunity to explore our region of central California by car. We dubbed these our pandemic peregrinations and used our Chevy Bolt EV to take more than 50 day trips from Bakersfield during the past year of the pandemic.

The Great Western Divide Highway takes you through the heart of Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Monument where the big trees are located.

This trip was an adventure that I’d thought about since I moved to California four decades ago. It’s legendary. Mythic even. And I never thought you could still do it until we visited the Ridge Route Museum in Frazier Park pre-pandemic. There the curator mentioned that there’s a movement to preserve the road that still exists and “some” still drive it she said. The implication in her voice was that we couldn’t.