Convict Lake - Eastern Sierras, California

Three Northern California Sunsets

This crazy long summer, going half way into October with subtropical skies.

Bonus east coast sunset: Lords Point - Stonington, Connecticut

Whiskeytown Lake / Crystal Creek Falls, California

Whiskeytown Lake is the site of a former mining town that was dammed in 1963. It's a popular recreation area with four neighboring waterfalls that are fairly accessible. The annual Waterfall Challenge takes place in April—hike to all four waterfalls within the designated week either on your own or alongside a scheduled ranger-led excursion. That's a scenic challenge.

Whiskeytown's National Recreational Area site is here.

Mendocino, California

The former logging town turned tourist destination, Mendocino. Picturesque.

Sundial Bridge - Redding, California

I recently visited the beautiful Sundial Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava in Redding, California. This pedestrian span crosses the Sacramento River and leads to 300 acres of trails and parkland. An arboretum and interactive museum seal the deal. Worth a visit. Like functional sculpture.

 

Founders Grove - Avenue of the Giants, California

When visiting Northern California, be sure to drive along the Avenue of the Giants. Make note of Founders Grove, an old-growth grove where 2,500-year-old trees tower over you at ridiculous heights. The fallen trees are just as amazing. Everything is so gigantic you'll feel like a tiny ant, running around taking photos. It gets dark in the late afternoon in the fall, so use a flash. Good luck.

 

Fall Color

I've been working on a writing project rather intensely and mostly speeding around on my bicycle, when I get out at all. So I haven't done my photography wanderings much at all. This is kind of sad. Today I purposefully walked down the street to capture some fall color. It's been a very colorful last few weeks, but our teeny-tiny rainstorm a few days ago (lasting less than 30 minutes) did knock some of the color onto the ground. Gardeners are working everywhere I ride, raking, leaf-blowing, bagging, looking fatigued. Hat's off to gardeners, professional and amateur, as we continue to watch the leaves fall.

Are you missing out on foliage? This tree has it all and then some. I just wish there was slightly more yellow, but otherwise—a fine blend.

Mossy Oak - Lafayette Reservoir

Mossy oak at lovely Lafayette Reservoir.

The Incredible View from the Lawrence Hall of Science Parking Lot

The San Francisco Bay Area has some incredible parking-lot views. The parking tower at UCSF on Parnassus with the entire Golden Gate Park and Pacific Ocean to its left, comes to mind. Same with the top floor of the structure above the Festival Theater in Walnut Creek, surrounded by three mountain-ridge formations plus Mt. Diablo towering over all and more often than not, shining in the sun.

But the parking-lot view adjacent to Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science is the most breathtaking in scope. Yesterday we pulled into a space overlooking the sweeping panorama of the San Francisco Bay where five cities were easily viewable, along with the Bay, Golden Gate and Richmond Bridges. Plus Mt. Tam and the Berkeley campanile. Why, we could see our old house from there! (Not really, but with less tree cover—no doubt we could).

It was a bit hazy in the afternoon, clearing up by sunset. My little camera cannot do it justice, but here's a captioned image of the view from our car. As always, click to enlarge.

The Lawrence Hall of Science is a fun, interactive kids' science museum. A big bunker of a bomb-shelter-like building cut into the side of the Berkeley Hills. The cafe has more breathtaking views from the hillside basement. Best time you'll ever have eating a bag of chips, I promise. The roof of the museum has gigantic whale and dna-strand climbing sculptures, but surprisingly, for such an expanse of concrete—no plant life in containers or otherwise. I guess you need to drive down the hill a quarter-of-a-mile and visit the excellent UC Botanical Garden. Hey, somebody get a grant to hire a gardening team for that rooftop.

Jackson and his friend Clarabelle had a very fun day, building stuff, testing flight patterns of modified junk in air tubes, riding a tricycle with square wheels, petting a snake, viewing a baby mastodon skeleton, and creating dams in the outdoor water and rock garden. Good stuff.

A walk in the park

That's right—I walked in the park, and here's what I saw.

Dramatic clouds

Royal Palm fronds with clouds

A big group of people playing cricket at lunchtime, cheering and having a good time.

A bark-shedding Eucalyptus that managed to survive the "thinning of the Eucalyptus grove" of last year. Hang in there, non-native, invasive, and highly combustible tree.

Back yard plants and their abstracts

I have not been out and about for a while, spending a lot of time drawing, painting and trying to write. (I like the research part of writing but at some point, I actually have to do the writing itself.) So I've been neglecting my nature world and that's not good. I went out in the back yard and took some close-ups of my potted varieties (official-sounding garden-speak) and then posed a little art challenge. Just zoom in for an abstract. Maybe I'll use these abstracts for a painting project. More research!