On the Road and In Your Backyard

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

So Tom Petty died twice, as it were. I like to think that he saw coverage of the horror in Las Vegas and couldn’t take it, having just concluded – successfully! – his final round-up tour. It just took him a while longer to shake loose this mortal coil.

I wish he was still with us, for his music, but also for him – I am a big, huge fan of his XM (known as SiriusXM) Radio program “Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure”. It’s some of the best stuff you’ll ever hear, and you’ll have lots of laughs learning about some great American (and British! and other!) amazing music.  His knowledge, passion, oddity, heartiness, skill, cockiness, and subtle sensitivity were inspirational.

His radio show offers such a nice alternative to commercial crap it makes you weep, even more so knowing that he won’t be back to Rick’s Airport Recordings, having once again brought some rare recordings from his personal collection to provide – as he said, “the best rock, rhythm and blues”. It is an education, and I recommend it highly.

I just know Tom would wish we’d all roll some great tunes, likely featuring Wanda….so let’s go!

I’ll be posting appropriate music the rest of the week, but now, onto the pictures!

Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.

Descanso Gardens

In my post about Mt. Hollywood, commenter MaryG asked if I’d been to Descanso Gardens; the answer is yes and I thought today would be a perfect opportunity to share my visit there last year. While my visit last year was not my first time on the garden property(madame and I had some of our wedding pictures taken there and a colleague got married there), it was my first visit where I could see most of the garden. This was a bit surprising since I lived about 2 miles from the gardens for about 20 years, but never visited. The primary reason that prompted this particular visit was that I’d just received my full spectrum camera from the conversion service(they take out a filter in the camera and replace it with glass), and I though a garden with waterfalls and lakes would be a good place to try out the IR camera.

Desconso Gardens is in the Crescenta Valley in the city of La Canada Flintridge, about 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and about a mile east of the Montrose neighborhood of Glendale. The gardens are on the former estate of E. Manchester Boddy, who ran the Los Angeles Daily News and had a commercial camellia garden on a portion of the estate. He was able to expand his camellia business when he bought out 2 Japanese/American nurseries at the beginning of World War II. In 1953, Boddy ceded the gardens to the County of Los Angeles and they still operate the gardens today.

Bridge at the Japanese garden.

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

This is the bridge over a little creek that flows though the Japanese garden. I’ll let y’all in on a little secret, the gardens weren’t quite as empty as the picture indicates. If you want to have a picture without people at a touristy location: take a shot, wait for a minute or so and then take another and repeat(the more the better). Then put them together in Photoshop(or the image editing software of your choice) and mask out the people.

The same bridge from the other direction.

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

I really liked the color and contrast of all the plants with the bridge peeking out in the background.

Flowers!

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

One of the many flower beds at Desconso, they also have a very nice rose garden that has a very ugly fence around it to protect it from the deer that wander down from the hills.

The upper reaches of the garden(in Infrared).

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

Most of the main garden is in the lower portion of the property with the upper portion more rustic and natural. This infrared shot shows the coast live oak with the San Gabriels in the background.

Poppies!

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

This field was full of California Poppies(our state flower).

Waterfall.

Taken on 2016-03-18

Desconso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, CA

This waterfall is directly downstream from the lake. It was photographed using my camera’s ‘waterfall’ mode to capture a more dreamy feel to the water.

 

Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email