Tree Abstract

What an amazing swirl of color here...it almost looks like a painting! (It is trees in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.)

A Day at the Beach

Despite being busy with the usual nonsense plus Christmas stuff, I decided to just take myself to the beach today.

This is Cabrillo National Monument, breathtakingly beautiful, no? It was breathtakingly COLD and windy there today, which I rather enjoyed. I was down by the tidepools, but today was not a low tide so the pools were inaccessible.

The last two pics of are lighthouses (duh)--the first one is the first lighthouse built on Point Loma in 1855...it is up at the top of a bluff, which seemed like a good idea, except that fog and low clouds often obscured the light. The bottom pic is of the lighthouse used today, built in 1891 down at sea level.

A Day at the Park

 The koi are in a frenzy because they were being fed...pretty little piggies!

Guess where I was...Japan! No, alas, not really...

 I was with a friend last week at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. Parts of the garden really do make one feel as if you're in a garden somewhere in Tokyo or Kyoto. Lovely!  My friend and I went to see the garden and an exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art entitled "Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland." A really fun and interesting exhibition that includes paintings, prints, photos, and objects--including this fellow, who apparently used to be atop the fantastically named Spook-a-Rama ride.

Botanic Road Trippin'

 On January 2, my sweetest B. surprised me with a road trip to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, full of California native plants. On the way, we passed the sign above.

 Not much in bloom this time of year, but there are many cool trees there. This is a mesquite tree

 View of Mt. Baldy.

 Ghostly tree (almost white)--I don't know what it is.

 Boojum! This was about 60 feet tall.

A fun day was had by all...we had the place to ourselves, too, which was extra nice.

A New Park in the 'Hood

 After a struggle that lasted eight years, our neighborhood has a new pocket park...it's a tiny bit of land on the edge of the lush canyon above. It was an overgrown mess for years, with homeless folks living in it. Eight years ago, a bunch of us cleared it out of weeds...and then the weeds grew back while the city debated the design/tried to find money/etc. And it was cleared of weeds again. And it all grew back, again.

 But several tenacious folks kept at it, didn't give up, and lo and behold: a nice place to rest, sit on the park bench and enjoy the view. Above, the ribbon cutting by a bunch of people, only some of whom actually had anything to do with the park's realization (everyone was invited up, to be fair...)

And a cute dog, on a bench, enjoying the view.