Road & Trail

Joshua Tree in Bloom

I don't recall exactly where I was when I pulled over to photograph these two high desert scenes in April 2003. It might have been somewhere between Highway 395 and Lake Isabella.

Eleven years earlier I was on my first backpacking trip with a group called Desert Survivors when I stopped to photograph this desert tortoise whose mouth was stained green from its recent leafy breakfast.

We hadn't hiked far past the desert tortoise when we encountered this sidewinder rattlesnake sunning itself in a creosote bush.

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Piedras Blancas

When I shot this sunset in 1995 the elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas was fairly new and only beginning to get noticed by people driving by. There was no boardwalk, and Friends of the Elephant Seal was still two years away from training its first docents. 

The first boardwalk was built eight years after I shot the sunset photo, with another boardwalk opening in 2010. These elephant seal shots were all taken in April 2008, two years before the north boardwalk was built.

Thanks to the boardwalks, Piedras Blancas is a great place to view elephant seals. I came here once in the winter during pupping season and was astounded by the amazing experience of raw nature as seals gave birth right before our eyes and gulls swooped down to feed on placentas.

In these April 2008 shots, the seals were much more subdued.

Subdued like this seal, whose expression reminds me of my own when on Friday I went up to Mt. Tam to swap new batteries into my wildlife cams, only to find I couldn't get access. The gates are locked at Bootjack and Pantoll, as well as above the Alice Eastwood Group Camp, and even the parking pull-outs along the road are closed.

I'd like to think we're going to pull through this very soon and go back to the days of innocence, lying on the beach in the warm afternoon sun.

But I'm staying prepared for a much longer haul, like an industrious California ground squirrel in spring.

In addition to the numerous ground squirrels, the parking area at Piedras Blancas is also a good place to look for brush rabbits after you've had your fill of elephant seals.

Sometimes there's little else to do than simply enjoy the comforts of home and wait things out. 

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Pigeon Point Wildflowers

Mustard & Wild Radish, Pigeon Point

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Big Sur

Coastal Poppies

Redwoods and Pico Blanco

Big Sur Sunset

Big Sur Coast with Echium

Partington Creek

Lupine and Owl's Clover, Fort Hunter Liggett

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Time Flies

Buckeye Butterfly, Santa Ynez Mountains, April 1985.

Chorus Frog on Granite Boulder, Santa Ynez Mountains, April 1985.

California Fuchsia, Santa Ynez Mountains, April 1985.

This might be the first time I've actually viewed the California fuchsia image since I now see that it's not a very good scan. Funny to think back to when I took these pictures using a Nikon F3 and a 50mm lens with extension tubes. The film was probably Kodachrome 25. Velvia was still another five years in the future, and I wouldn't switch to a digital camera for another 20 years. 

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April Plain

Fiddleneck Sunrise on the edge of Soda Lake, Carrizo Plain National Monument.

What an "extreme drought year" looks like on Carrizo (April 7, 2007).

Interestingly, the following year was also an extreme drought year, but it didn't look quite so parched, at least on this part of the plain.

Not too bad for an extreme drought year.

On the other hand, it seems that "extreme" in 2008 didn't mean quite the same thing by 2013, when I took this shot of wind blowing across Soda Lake.

This twisty little devil formed on Soda Lake during one of the driest periods in state history: 

"The 2011-2017 California drought was a persistent drought from the period of December 2011 to March 2017, and is one of the most intense droughts in California history, with the period of late 2011 through 2014 being the driest in California history." (Wikipedia)

So one year I was passing through when I spotted a lone pronghorn lying on the plain. I pulled over and got my camera out, and after a few minutes he stood up. I figured he would wander off, but he was the curious type.

  

He got so close I had to switch to vertical format.

And then he got so close I snapped a head-and-shoulders shot.

And finally he came in for a portrait. 

It was just the two of us out there as far as the eye could see. 

His curiosity satisfied, he finally turned and ambled away.

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Gimme Shelter

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As I do my best to hide from a virus I can't see, I take a few phone snaps here and there to remind me it's not all bad. Sheltering in place and working from home can be a drag, but it also means:

Having time to eat an awesome breakfast.

Reading a fat book.

Drinking quarantinis.

Going grocery shopping and wondering if now's the time to find out what a $9 jar of pasta sauce tastes like.

Going for walks in the neighborhood.

Stopping to smell the spring blossoms.

Doing sketchfest with friends online.

Making hummus and avocado toast with Sriracha drops.

Spotting San Francisco wallflowers at your local park.

Sitting with a friendly neighborhood cat.

Arranging your pantry.

Taking more neighborhood walks.

Going into the office one day and being the only person on the whole floor.

Checking out the mad lunch-hour rush (it's Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in this shot).

Visiting Pier 39 (taking the long way home from the office).

Walking in the street to keep your distance from your neighbors.

Making awesome vegan mac-and-cheese.

And there's always ... taking another neighborhood walk.

When I go for my first walk in the early morning I'm always surprised to see people getting in their car to drive somewhere. For those of you who are going to work at great personal risk to bring us our food (from the growers and farmworkers to the truckers and grocers), to the folks who keep the water running, the lights on, and the internet connected, and to all the medical staff on the front lines of this health crisis, I salute you and thank you from the bottom of my heart!

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