California Dreamin

California Dreamin on Such a  Winter's Day.  Those were my thoughts as I processed this image.  Taken this spring while visiting the redwoods of northern California.  I stayed in Trinidad which is near Prairie Creek St. Park, so I found myself exploring the beautiful coastline in this area.  After picking up some takeout dinner, my wife and I headed down the coast to find a place to eat our dinner.  This view was near the road, so it was a no brainer that this is where we would hand and eat dinner and watch the sun set.  I was always under the impression that the sun set way out over the sea on the west coast, but I guess not, depending where you were.  Fortunately the sun sank near th coastline to provide some nice back-lighting for the flowers and color in the ocean.  This was a colorful as things got, thought the sky might explode with color after the sun sunk below the horizon but it never happened. 

I focal stacked a couple of images to keep all of the Monkshood(I think) sharp.  A slightly darker exposure was used for the sky.  All of the Monkshood I've previously seen were an indigo blue in color, so maybe this isn't Monkshood?  I'll include a crop of the flowers in case anyone can ID as something else.  I do see some darker blue flowers that are not yet fully opened, but all of the mature flowers were an unexpected vibrant maroon.