Photo of the Day 128

Wildflowers and Sky, California, 2000

Photograph by Frans Lanting

A deep-blue sky sets off a mass of yellow wildflower blooms along California's Big Sur coast. Each year more than three million visitors navigate the treacherous turns of Highway 1, drawn by the plunging gorges, fog-strewn coves, exploding surf, and tortuous geography—5,000-foot (1,524-meter) summits plummet abruptly to the ocean—of California's dramatic 90-mile (145-kilometer) coast.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Big Sur: California's Elemental Coast," August 2000, National Geographic magazine)