a day at the office

monday morning and it's time to go to work. my husband has an assignment to get the gps coordinates of hikes here on the central coast of california. here is today's hike:

Highlights:
Coastal bluff trail, (Sea) Lion Rock, incredible drop-offs and ocean view
Near: Santa Maria, CA
Scenery: 5 stars
Distance: 12.5 miles round trip
Elevation Gain: 2500 ft
Hike Time: 6.5 hours
Difficulty: Strenuous
Trail Condition: OK, but a few difficult spots
HikeType: Out and Back


ready?

we began early in the morning, in dense fog...

drippy wet dense fog...




which rolled away briefly, making these mariposa lilys happy...

fog and sun make a peaceful landscape

the area we are in is owned by the military, we have to stay on the

designated trail and obey all signs...





you can just make out part of the trail to the far left...

the fog is rolling (actually very furiously blowing) back in...

here it is a bit confusing, the trail is behind the barbed wire...

so on we go...

here is the pacific ocean from high above,

i wish i could take photos of the best views, but that isn't allowed,

and the trail continues.

we are following this ridge up and down, we are exposed,

there are steep drop offs, there is wind, fog and cold....

see the ridge in the background? that is where we are headed,

Chuck thought it looked a bit like a serpent...

hiking, hiking, hiking...

up and down....

i had to put my camera away at times, the fog was like rain...

and the wind made it go sideways, for almost all 12 miles...

in a moment of brief sunshine, we found these two, asleep and cuddling.

we thought they were dead until she woke up, and looked at us. can you see her foot on his head? we had no idea what kind of lizard love was going on here...

we've left the single track and are back on the fire road heading down.

here, warming itself in the barely visible sun is a big snake.

he's wondering what we are doing out here in this isolated, blustery cold,

yet extremely beautiful place...

just enjoying the day like you, my slithery friend...

we're almost done, are you still with me?

late blooming wildflowers

these were so small and delicate, protected from the wind

if you look closely you can see our truck, still a couple miles away...

there he is, and it looks like he's made a friend, we were the only ones here this morning...

now the hike is officially over, chuck got all the coordinates he needs,

and i am glad,

it's quittin' time.

if you'd like more information on California State Parks

and the Point Sal Trail go here.
thank you for coming along :)

♥ lori

receiving

dear diary, part one

this year has been very good to me. it seems like i've been on the receiving end of life and i'm thinking hard how i can give back. in both cases i'm not just talking about material things, i'm talking about heart things. did i write it already that my favorite parts about my birthday (besides eating lobster, getting cards and comments and flowers), was that my 19 year old baked me a cake? (surprise mama!) and my husband sang the birthday song all by himself, alone, to me? and that i talked on the phone to each of my kids and gkids, parents and parentsbychoice before 9am (on the actual day!!). i felt surrounded, cradled, wrapped deeply in love.
and then the mailman came...

and brought WEE OWEN!

here is a materialheartthing made by my dear friend Geli. she made him! even drawing up her own pattern. my own Owen is not as happy with the newcomer as i am, since wee owen gets to do many things Owen does not...

like help me sort the sea glass i found this week...

again, in one day, in less than two hours! i've got to think of something to do with all this glass! and can you see the pottery shard with the leaf on it?, love that! :)

here is wee owen and mtoto chui, that's Chuck's baby leopard from his boyhood,

do you see that wee owen is already taking after his big brother, being a bit pesky,

oh wee owen...

i like that they are already good friends, these two.

thank you so much dear Geli.

dear diary, part two

one day this week at work two women came in our shop. i overheard them talking and noticed the lovely friendship they had. it turned out they were sisters. one of the girls came up to me and, after paying me a very kind compliment, we got to talking. when her sister came up, i noticed they were wearing the same necklace, so pretty! they decided that i should have one and the one sister took off her necklace and gave it to me. OH Dear! i didn't mean to imply, i mean, i was only saying... that's when the other sister said, i have a jewelry business, i make these.

the beautiful girl was Lisa Leonard. i know her! what i mean is i've seen her card on many MANY blogs, and in magazines too. i could hardly contain my excitement and said OH! i have a blog! we talked about that and how much joy it brings.

thank you dear Lisa, it was a pleasure to meet you and your twin sister.

if you would like to see more of her beautiful designs and her lovely blog go here...

it wasn't until Lisa and her sister and i exchanged cards, hugged and said goodbye that i got a good look at my new necklace (materialheartthing) and the word stamped on it : happy.

:)

♥ lori

a sign

(found in my town)


Don't stop believen.
Thank you ducktapefeltpen person.

You are clever and I love this.


"promise me you'll always remember : you're braver than you believe,

and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

~Christopher Robin to Pooh
me to you~

♥ lori

oh poo

we'd been looking forward to seeing U2 for months. i LOVE having something to look forward to. and U2! i really am sorry bono is in pain and needed surgery just the other day. and i really really hope he feels better soon. because that is most important. but i won't lie and say i wasn't disappointed to find out only 9 days before the concert that it's been cancelled. i spent much of yesterday undoing our train tickets, hotel reservations, time off work... they should be back on track come august, for the rest of the european tour anyway, but we found out we'll have to keep waiting here in the u.s. , till next year! bugger. oh well, i do have a birthday to look forward to tomorrow, and that means cake!


♥ lori , older and a wee bit wiser ;)

a field trip and some scary things

hello there.

i am a horned lizard and i live here at the desert tortoise natural area
in the western mojave desert (i'm not the scary thing)...

in addition to me, horned lizard, there are 27 other species of reptiles, 29 species of breeding birds, 23 species of mammals and many species of arthropods living on the natural area...





we woke at 4:00 am and arrived to the mojave around 7:00 am, only missing one or two turns on unmarked gravel roads. a naturalist (ed) was there at the interpretive center (a trailer) and kindly answered all the questions we had before we headed out on the trails.





we hoped to see tortoises and ed knew just where one was so we followed him...

here she is! this is turquoise, she's a wild tortoise (gopherus agassizii) estimated to be around 40 to 50 years old. she's expected to live 30 to 40 more years, if she were a captive she could live 50 more years.

i could see her eyes open half way checking us out and then she squeezed them shut tucking her head in at the same time. she was quite uninterested in us. in order not to cause her undue stress we said goodbye and continued on to..

wildflowers! the last thing we thought we'd see in the desert at the end of may.

it was about this time that my camera stopped working. putting frustration aside, i was grateful for my little leica point and shoot. it takes more photos for this blog than my canon anyway...

thank you little leica for not failing me too...

sorry i didn't know the name of the pink flower above, but this is winter fat

(krascheninnikovi lanata) now used as a grazing plant by ranchers. indians made tea to drink and to wash their hair. the zunis chewed the fresh root and used them as a burn remedy.

birds collect the soft seed to line their nests.

here is my husband getting a photo of a lichen covered rock and...

this side-blotched lizard (uta stansburiana) isn't he a beauty? the weather was uncharacteristically cool so he was out warming himself on the rock. he tolerated several photos,

even posing for a few.

this is an ant ring, it looks a bit like a volcano doesn't it?

i wonder if anyone knows what this little tube is? can you even see it? most everything in the desert is camouflaged. this little turret here is the home of a desert dwelling spider called the wolf spider. he builds his home out of gravel, plant debris and rabbit pellets. then it ambush's it's prey. this is the scary thing. even scarier is the larger tarantula.

here is a perfect example of desert camouflage, can you see whats in this photo?

it's the super cute and friendly horned lizard.

(phrynosoma platyrhinos calidiarum)

aren't his markings gorgeous? we held him for a minute and then let him back down to the sand. as far as lizards go, these little guys have a wonderful personality.

this is one of my favorites, the paperbag bush (salazaria mexicana). the inflated seed pods resemble tiny paper bags. and just look at these colors.

a leopard lizard (gambelia wislizenii) , named for how stealth they are and how fast they run...

and here a zebra tail (calisaurus draconoides draconoides), because it has a striped tail (sorry that's not in the photo). zebra tails are one of the fastest desert reptiles, they can run up to

18 miles per hour.

here is a desert tortoise in it's burrow. they spend most of their lives underground in burrows or caves. it's fascinating how the shape of the burrow mirrors the shape of the tortoise.

we spent hours hiking around looking for these animals. the desert tortoise is california's state reptile. it was listed under the federal endangered species act in 1989 and is classed as threatened. this has been their home for millions of years, i've joined the desert tortoise preserve committee in hopes that they'll remain for millions more. i read that perhaps its because of their gentle, inoffensive ways and behavior, desert tortoises are very popular animals. it would be sad indeed if the tortoise was allowed to go extinct.

golden cholla

(opuntia echinocarpa)

creosote bush

(larrea tridentata)

this covers much of the deserts in california.
i love it.

it's the horned lizard again. actually it's one of his many cousins, we found several of these guys on the trail and in the washes...

see how sweet?

the sun was beginning its decline and so was i. we had been out walking/hiking for over 6 hours. first it was cold and windy, then it was hot and breezy. and now it was cooling down again and i was letting down my guard. can you see the small coiled object a quarter of the way up from the bottom in this photo?

it is the "mojave green" rattlesnake.

(crotalus scutulatus scutulatus)

reputed to possess the most toxic venom of any u.s. rattlesnake.

i almost stepped on it.

i wasn't scared, but chuck was. he saw it first and yanked me backwards just in the nick of time. it upset me to see him shaken, he said if my foot had come down it would have been on it.

after the initial scare we were so excited.

i don't think we were in any danger taking these photos. the snake was very calm and docile, it woke slowly and gently checked out the new visitors (us).

we watched it move out of it's coil, but only partially. it seemed to know we wouldn't cause it any harm and it wound it's self back up and seemed to go back to sleep.

(when we got back to the naturalist he id it as the mojave green,

a female that had recently given birth).

we'd decided it was time to head back home, our field trip had been a great success, we saw so much, more than we ever expected.

driving away from the natural area, on the gravel/dirt road to the highway, we had another fantastic find, here is chuck running back to make sure we didn't run over another....

snake.

this time a coachwhip or a gopher, we were not sure.

but he was a beauty.

it was a perfect ending to a great day.

♥ lori