Our hosts relaxing by the grotto at Everspring after work. Picture after that is from the Topanga banjo and fiddle competition, an amazing music fair held at Paramount Ranch near Thousand Oaks. Besides the main stage, where pros played between competitors, there was a whole music village to stroll through where ad hoc pick up groups played music on the street corners of the old movie set western town verandas. Booths were set up to sell guitars, banjos, and mandolins as well as straw hats, scarfs, and other folk music paraphernalia.
Wildflowers are all blooming. This is a refreshing change from the snowy confines of Donner Summit where we've spent the whole winter. We are using my brother's house as a base of operations as we explore this coastal region of southern California. The mediteranean climate is almost identical to Marin County near home, and it is easy to imagine ourselves far, far away looking over the uniformly red-tiled roofs and the multi-colored cascading hills rolling off to the distance. The trails here are already dusty and hot but the rugged terrain and tough plants are still enjoyable to ramble through. No single flower is large or showy unless you get real close and study the plants from a few inches away. On see exposed, dry slopes, the waxy leaved plants tend to grow like shrubs, with many blooms per plant. Lizards scurry just ahead of us on the trail, and there seems to be a steady buzzing from the busy pollinator insects in the shadows. At sunset we see a brown bunny cross the trail.
Hike up sandstone peak , the highest mountain in the Santa Monica Mountain Range. There was a thick marine layer on the coast, so we did not see the ocean, but the vistas were still remarkable...
No comments:
Post a Comment