Cali spring pix

These pix were taken from late March to late April of this year.  It hasn't been a wet spring as we all know, but there was enough moisture to produce some decent blooms.  These Joshua Trees were blooming in the national park in late March.

When I visited the poppy park near Lancaster there were few flowers in the park itself, but the surrounding area had some decent patches.

Garland Park in Carmel Valley has oak jungles on its hillsides.  The degrees of light and shade are infinite.

Chinese houses in Garland, around the start of April.

I must confess...these spectacular lupines are in a watered garden at the Garland Park visitor center.

McWay falls, in Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP just south of Big Sur.  Blow up the pic for a better view of the cascade.  The palm tree is left from a house built on the site in 1940, abandoned just 16 years later.

Macro shot of lupines near Pt Piedras Blancas...without irrigation.  This pic was taken yesterday.

The elephant sloats are getting carried away!  Do they think they're sardines?  They make Coney Island on a summer day look desolate.  Blow this pic up and you'll never see as much blubber in so few pixels.  These are females and young sloats, ashore to molt.

The green hills of San Luis Obispo county.  Blow up the pic and in the far distance you can see Morro Rock.  On April 22, still green here, near the coast...but pure brown on the inland side of highway 101.

I stayed at the Paso Robles Inn last night.  Fine grounds, an excellent restaurant, and...a soaking tub on my balcony that can be filled with mineral water.  This spot has been a hot spring resort for over 150 years, and long before that, the local Native Americans used it, as did the grizzly bears, according to one account.

One of the frequent guests at the resort was Ignace Jan Paderewski.  He was one of the world's top piano virtuosos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  In 1915, well into middle age, he was afflicted with arthritis which made it difficult to play.  He came here, soaked his hand in the mineral waters, and it loosened up so he could continue with his career.  After that he came here regularly until his death in 1941.  He owned this piano.

Heading south of Barstow, I drove into a healthy shower.  Always good light with the sun behind you.

A cumulonimbus looms over the countryside near Yucca Valley.