Breezes caress
Scents of jasmine, roses
Rainbow colors
These are growing on a large rock.
Spring at The Huntington
tropical flowers
El Barrio Bonito
Every week I go to Mendez High School in Boyle Hts., CA. Between meetings with my students, I take a walk in one of my favorite neighborhoods. Frequently when a person mentions low income housing, a negative image comes to their minds. Wrong. The neighborhood where I walk is beautiful, lovely places full of flowers. In one area the buildings are painted in joyous colors that make me smile every time I walk there. Here are photos for you to see for yourself.
Downtown LA in the background.
An Afternoon Stroll at The Huntington
Friday, I decided to look around at parts of The Huntington since I had not been there in a while. For one thing, I knew the roses would be in full bloom, and even though I had been there a number of times, I had never looked around the rose garden. They did not disappoint.
Find the bird among the roses.
The building is the newly reopened Tea Room.
This rose has perfume as part of its name and smells divine.
I left the rose area and strolled in the herb garden seen above. Then I found a new kind of artichoke, Opera Artichoke. See below.
Facing away from the rose garden I could see all the way to downtown Los Angeles.
This tree is labeled Naked Coral.
Then I strolled through the tropical garden area.
Fig trees.
After leaving the tropical area, I wandered around cactus and succulent gardens.
Another Day at The Huntington
Decades ago three of us attended the same two room elementary school, Clay Center, located at the corner of the intersection of two gravel, country roads, surrounded by rolling farmland in Northwest Missouri.
On Wednesday morning, we strolled though part of The Huntington Gardens and one of the art galleries there.
Ramona, the youngest one of us, is visiting her brother, Craig, who lives in Palm Springs. She loves succulents so we headed to that part of the gardens first.
Ramona and my daughter strolling along one of the wider pathways.
An Afternoon at Laguna Beach
Every year Laguna Beach has a Garden Tour. We decided to take a look and celebrate Mother’s Day one day early–my daughter, grandson, his girlfriend, and I. To be honest the tour was a bit disappointing but Laguna Beach itself definitely was not. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and will return.
We decided to do the cardio tour–yes, that is what they called it. The shuttle drops everyone off at Garden 1, you follow a map, and walk the rest of the tour. The option is to take the shuttle just about everywhere. We did not do that. Here are a few photos I took along the way.
The rest of my family in front of me walking one of the cardio sections.
A door I loved in an alley along the way.
The final street of the tour was the street closet to the ocean.
The Huntington Gardens–Part Two
In the last six weeks I have travelled to these gardens five times, two alone and three with house guests. Amid all the turmoil in the world today this is a place where nature continues its grand display, instilling a sense of peace and quiet.
Depending on how you walk through the gardens, you walk to Japanese first, then Chinese, then back to the Japanese Gardens. This and the following few photos are the Chinese Gardens.
The Chinese Garden is filled with various sizes of limestone that looks like sculptures but is natural. The next time I go, I am going to learn what is written on many of the pieces of limestone.
After five times, I have seen most of the gardens–next post will be some photos of the Australian area–and the two art galleries. Never made it to the library yet.
The Huntington–Gardens, Part One
Where have I been? Entertaining my son whom I had not seen in more than two years. One of the things he wanted to do was visit The Huntington in Pasadena after seeing some photos I took on a visit in January. Unless you get there as soon as they open and stay all day, it is impossible to see everything in one day. I have been there four times and only seen the gardens. The library and art gallery await for another time. Here are the photos from the first excursion with my son, Erik.
In many place in the gardens you can see the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
Italy–the Amalfi Coast
On one of our day trips from Sorrento, we headed down the Amalfi Coast. For years I have seen photos and told myself, “Wow”. No photo can do this coastline justice. The highway is excellent but narrow. On many of the turns, only one vehicle can proceed. A large bus cannot travel this highway. Even with the small ones we took, the driver would often honk as we turned a corner which we could not see around.
We stopped at one of the few turnoffs along the highway and took a short hike down to an overlook. This is the town of Positano. I took the following photos while at this overlook.
I love bougainvillea and all colors grew everywhere.
Looking across the Mediterranean.
The land is rugged with both new and ancient buildings hanging off mountainsides and cliffs.
A closer view of Positano.
Another view across the Mediterranean.
The highway, houses hanging off the edge, olive trees, lushness everywhere.
It was a stormy looking day. We kept thinking it would rain but luckily it did not.
The Amalfi Cathedral in the town of Almalfi. Its design is unique and shows the cultural influence of the Muslim world with whom the town was a major trading center for centuries–arches, gold and green.
A typical street in Amalfi. We walked all the way up this street to just below the school, found all sorts of delightful shops, and ate our favorite food of the entire trip. My favorite was spaghetti with a lemon creme sauce. Recipe comes later.
Near the sea looking up into the city. The large building up on the slopes is now a cemetery but used to be a monastery.
Same spot as previous photo, just looking the other direction.
We were supposed to take a little boat trip out into the sea but it was too rough. Ema, my daughter, walked all the way out to the end of the pier.
The water was so high I thought perhaps it was high tide. I was told it was not.
Today I asked my daughter and grandson what/where was their favorite in Italy. We all agree, Amalfi. I also loved Capri–more about there later.
Adventures in Argentina–Flora and Fauna Near Iguazu Falls
Across the highway from the helicopter business, we visited a surprisedly large bird sanctuary, recommended by our taxi driver/guide. We did not expect anything as lovely as what we found. Most of the birds and flowers there are native to the area. However, a few rarer species from other parts of the world exist there as well.
Surprised, I recalled seeing these exact same flowers on my two trips to Costa Rica. In fact, I found another photo on an older blog post from one of my Costa Rica trips.
Endangered, many countries where these wonderful parrots live do everything they can to save them. They pair for life–we found the evidence amusing and enchanting.
Whenever we saw an uneven number together, we looked elsewhere and found the mate drinking or feeding.
Of course, there has to be toucans. Some even clowned for the tourists. People clustered all around to watch their antics.
Where you have flowers you have butterflies.
Butterflies love Gaston.
They landed on him, flew to his fingers, let him pick them up without flying away. I tried, but no luck.
A fabulous morning on the Brazilian side, starting with the helicopter ride and ending here with flowers, birds, and butterflies.
Costa Rica Adventure, Day Three–Part One
After lunch at the National Theatre we headed to Monteverde, a small town with only one unpaved road in and out. One big change since I was there three years ago is the road. It has been widened considerably and apparently plans to pave it are in the works. The original reason for not paving was to prevent hoards of tourists from invading. Apparently, that failed; tourists came anyway.
This town’s origination grew out of Costa Rica’s decision to disband its military in 1948, a practice which continues today. Quakers from Canada moved here for that reason and created Monteverde, now famous for its cheese and, of course, the nearby Cloud Forest. The hotel, where I have now stayed twice, El Establo, is owned in part by Quakers and serves a favorite of mine, fried cheese.
Nine buildings up and down the mountain house rooms. Previously, I stayed in one of the lower buildings; this time we were near the top way above this lake.
The views from all the rooms provide a vista all the way to Nocoya Bay. After we put luggage in our rooms, we headed out for a night walk in the forest, the reason we had been instructed to bring flashlights on the tour. We saw spiders, birds sleeping, a mouse, all sorts of insects, but nothing too exciting. Probably some of the group members were too scared and too noisy.
The next day breakfast occurred at 7 just before we took off for the Cloud Forest and a hike to the Continental Divide–all six miles or so. I had hiked here before but on a different trail and in a huge downpour. Luckily, it rained only a little. However, if you are in the clouds, you get wet.
Lush does not even begin to describe the Cloud Forest, a huge reserve with numerous indigenous species of everything from hummingbirds to insects to all sort of plants that exist nowhere else on earth.
Every tree, branch, every living things is covered with other living things. This must be botanist heaven.
Looking up into the branches of a tree fern. Yes, that is a fern. So much to see, it is hard to keep up with the guide, a native Quaker whose father was one of the founders of Monteverde.
It is difficult to know what photos to take; everything holds some kind of fascination and lots of beauty.
Another tree fern right by the trail.
In the clouds at the Continental Divide it’s incredibly windy yet the clouds stay and you get wetter and wetter even though it is not raining. Water dripped off my slicker, the trail oozed mud and water, it was hard to keep my footing on slopes.
On the way back we crossed several streams. Everywhere in Costa Rica signs in both Spanish and English instruct people to save water. They made me chuckle. Streams run everywhere in much of the country, especially on the Caribbean side. Here I live in a semi-arid environment where I see wasted water running down streets in town and in Costa Rica they conserve water and recycle things I did not even know were recyclable. Hotels provide recycling bins and some even turn off lights automatically when you are not in the room.
The name for this flower translates from Spanish as hot lips.
This looks like a tree but it is not. A giant, parasitic fig plant surrounded the tree, eventually killed it, and this is the result.
After we finished the hike, we walked over to a shop that feeds hummingbirds, hundreds of species of which live in Costa Rica, many only in the Cloud Forest. Took a video of them, but it refuses to upload here. Some were incredibly iridescent and much larger than any I had ever previously seen.
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