Clearing the Air

Ever since the work-from-home order began for me last Monday I've been taking my phone along as I stretch my legs with a walk around the neighborhood, in order to photograph this view toward Mt. Tamalpais from about the same place each trip. No special reason. It just seemed like something to do. 

This morning, though, the clarity of the view was more incredible than usual. Not only is there a significant reduction in air pollution going on due to reduced economic activity, but it also rained yesterday and took out whatever scrud was still floating around.

Just offshore, a beautiful squall hovered over the Pacific. At one point during my walk I could see a very faint but thick rainbow between the base of the cloud and the ocean. My angle was too oblique for the 'bow to gleam in all its splendor. I continued my walk thinking that if the squall kept sailing north over the ocean, I would eventually have a better angle. When I got home I grabbed my Nikon bag and got in the car to drive to a likely location, only to find that the squall had moved inland....

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Life on the Edge

Sunrise with Wight's Paintbrush at Chimney Rock, Pt. Reyes

Tidepool and Surfgrass at McClure's Beach, Pt. Reyes

Holding Fast
(Aren't we all!)

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Moods of Carrizo

When I first heard of Carrizo Plain in a botany class at Santa Barbara City College back in maybe 1983-84, the professor's description imbued it with an almost mythical quality, as if it existed on another planet, a secret garden of treasure known only to a select few. 

Something of that mythic quality lives on despite the fact that it's become a social media darling, the scene of cars parked bumper-to-bumper along its dirt roads. 

I've actually never been there during one of the so-called super blooms, but I've seen fantastic carpets of wildflowers, had close encounters with pronghorn (much closer than shown above!), and walked alone among the pictographs of Painted Rock when I had it, and virtually the whole plain, to myself.

Luckily there isn't enough oil under the plain to make it worth drilling for, or all of this would look the same as it does on the other side of the Temblor Range, a vast plain of pumpjacks instead of fiddleneck and goldfields, tidy tips and phacelia.

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