On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BigJimSlade
No, not dancing crowds, but you can find plenty of those… My wife and I hike every Saturday morning, but there were going to be some passing showers right at hiking time. (We haven’t had rain in LA in FOREVAAAR!) So we waited an extra hour… and that’s when it was announced that BIDEN had WON! WoooHooo!!! :-) My wife said that the rain we got felt like it was washing us clean of that future Rikers Island resident, Hair Furor.
As an added bonus, we had actual weather! For 6 months in LA, most days look pretty much the same, either clear but hazy, or we have some overcast, too. So when big cauliflower clouds come through it is such a treat for the eyes. (We get so many high clouds here, when I moved to Boston for a while I was astounded at how close the clouds seemed – you could just reach up and grab them!)
Some of this hike is along the same trail that I posted pictures from at the beginning of the pandemic when we were asked to post pictures from our walks. We couldn’t see Mt. Baldy today. (And the trail we did today was the same one we did on the day when the lockdown was announced – we were an hour into the hike when we found out that the trails were now closed.) On a side note, hikes go much faster and easier when it’s in the upper 50s, instead of uppers 70s into the 80s, it was a joy to go 9 miles.
This is in Topanga between Trippet Ranch and Eagle Rock (the rock, not the community about 15 miles away), looking across the Santa Monica Mountains towards and over the valley.
In November there are only a few flowers left around on some small scraggly plants, but I always keep an eye peeled for them.
This is looking out towards where Sunset Boulevard hits the Pacific Coast Highway and the Santa Monica Bay.
Looking east along the Santa Monica Mountains with the Los Angeles basin on the right. Downtown is in the background in the mid-right.
Looking out towards Santa Monica Bay, I went black and white with this one for a little drama.
Similar shot, but a little further down the trail, and I left it in color.
A little dandelion sort of thing – perhaps the most reliable flower around here. They have some great details. I took my first good flower picture of one of these things.
Coming back into the neighborhood we came across some bougainvillea reaching for the sky.
Hey, ex-flowers count, too.
raven
Drive west on Sunset
to the sea. . .
JanieM
Clouds, flowers, vistas. Gorgeous.
Achrachno
Familiar terrain! Southern California! : )
It’s always amazing that at the end of months of hot dry weather some herbaceous plants still manage to produce flowers. Very deep roots I’m sure, though I’ve never dug far enough to know.
In the event that you care, the first flower (it of the scraggly plant) is Corethrogyne filaginifolia (cudweed aster) and the white dandelion is Malacothrix saxatilis (cliff dandelion). I’m not going to hazard a guess on the dead flowers, though I think I know what they were. Shrub, right?
Wag
A fitting post on this momentous day. Nature and flowers for a President-elect who respects science and will work to slow climate change
cope
Lovely pictures to end a very fine day, indeed, thank you very much. Any mention of LA streets, roads, byways, boulevards or freeways always makes me think: “Antelope Freeway 1 Mile…Antelope Freeway 1/2 Miles…Antelope Freeway 1/4 Mile…”.
Thanks again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
The bougainvillea reminded me of the Glendora Bougainvillea. They’re on the north side of Bennett Ave between Minnesota and Cullen Aves. They grow on a steel framework to a height of about 50 feet or so. If you’re in SoCal, they’re worth a visit.
Old Dan and Little Ann
The Wife bought a $40 bottle of Champagne earlier. She shed many tears of happiness today. Clink!
Inventor
@raven: Turn that jungle music down
Just until we’re out of town
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cope: The Antelope Freeway is the route to some of my favorite night locations.
Paul T
Today was a nice Socal weather day. For the weather geeks, the first appearance since early spring of the “564” line, the magical line that divides polar air from tropical.
Got some snow in the mountains.
Typical Socal: my lips are chapped from the 95 degree dry heat on Thursday here in Long Beach. Today I carried lip balm in my rain jacket!
Yutsano
Ex-flowers lives matter too!
It’s little wonder people want to live in California. It’s expensive but it’s worth it.
Ruckus
My sister lived in Topanga Canyon for the last 25 yrs of her life. An amazing place, no cell service back when I stayed there for a year, and yes this was in the last decade. It goes from multi million $ houses to almost shacks and they can be next door to each other. Beautiful place to walk, almost amazing to be living in LA and yet it’s like a million miles away. OK not really that far….
Mike in NC
OK, I feel better than in ten years. My father and my wife’s dad were WW2 vets. They were not losers or suckers.They were young men who put their lives on hold for years to defeat fascism.
RepubAnon
The note about the weather reminded me of Steve Martin’s weatherman role in “LA Story.”
BigJimSlade
@Ruckus: :-) I used to call Topanga Canyon a time warp where you end up in the 60s. Not quite that with the more expensive places built up, but it’s still its own thing.
BigJimSlade
@JanieM: Thank you!
BigJimSlade
@raven: Had to google it – don’t know all that much Steely Dan – I’m always kind of amazed at how much precision there is in their music, yet it’s still kind of odd rather than boring. Some parts are so good…
?BillinGlendaleCA
The community of Eagle Rock gets its name from a rock(by the Presidient Obama Freeway) called Eagle Rock.
BigJimSlade
@Achrachno: Thanks, I didn’t have the time to look them up this time, but I use this site when I do: http://www.smmflowers.org/bloom/queries/Query-Blue.htm
You’ll see their entry for the purple one in the #2 spot. For the dead flowers, yeah, some shrub, but I don’t recall which flowers they had at this point – I’m sure I have a picture of them, though. Seriously, we hike every weekend and I take pictures of the flowers – it’s just the way it is!
BigJimSlade
@Wag: Thanks – it all seemed appropriate today.
BigJimSlade
@cope: Thanks, I’m just old enough to know who Firesign Theatre is and just young enough to not really know their stuff – I’ll have to fill that void!
BigJimSlade
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Geez this was just a stem over-achieving – that Glendora place sounds like a big deal – I would have to bring my telephoto zoom for the 50 foot ones :-)
BigJimSlade
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I got an email from a wine shop I go to offering some champagne sales :-) I opened an Etna Rosso tonight because it went with the pizza I made. On inauguration day, though, who knows what I might open!
BigJimSlade
@Paul T: Wow – I’ve never heard of the 564 line! I’m intrigued. Regarding the last few days – yep.
BigJimSlade
@Yutsano: I grew up a few miles away from these shots (and live even closer, somehow!) But sometimes ex-flowers are all we have, lol.
Benw
Amazing pictures! Wow.
It’s so wild that those landscapes are right next to the sprawl of LA. When I lived in Westwood my buddy had a place in Manhattan Beach, so we’d surf there most days. Sometimes though we’d head out Sunset until we got to Topanga Beach and surf around there. Just a completely different community. SoCal is so awesome
BigJimSlade
@RepubAnon: Pretty much – he was fired unfairly!
CaseyL
I love that view of Topanga Canyon. I visited a friend-of-a-friend there, during a summer in LA about 45 years ago. I don’t remember much about the area, because that was also the first time I dropped acid. I remember running up and down the (steep) street where we were, utterly amazed by how my feet hit the ground with each step. Gravity! It really works! :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: More like a fisheye….here’s a photo, maybe more like 30′ looking at the photo, they’re pretty tall. They’re actually a California Historical Landmark.
oatler.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I thought that was a Howard Roberts album.
BigJimSlade
@Benw: Thanks! I worked for a few months at the Tower Records on Westwood Blvd, if that was still there when you were.
And I would meet a friend at Mac’s Liquor in the summer in high school and spend the day at the beach (in Manhattan Beach). Though before that, my local friends (my high school friends were a different group) would go to lifeguard station 1, a couple of lights before Topanga. I only body surfed and boogie boarded, so I didn’t go to Topanga Beach except for walks.
BigJimSlade
@CaseyL: Sounds like time well spent – I haven’t done acid… in LA, lol
Ruckus
@BigJimSlade:
That it is. A time warp. Describes my sister both perfectly and not at all. A child of the, well not 60s but 50s, her heart was hippie all the way. And yet she also taught at USC and her memorial service was held on campus and was amazing for the variety of people, from her students to her 90 yr old mother and all the odd lots inbetween and it was in an art gallery with her work.
Ruckus
@BigJimSlade:
Neither have I. I’ve had a med that gave me acid like hallucinations. Or at least they seemed like ones I’ve been told about. My old dipshit neuro doc couldn’t believe it. Took nearly an entire day for them to go away. Oh and no, I did not enjoy that day. At all. Good times.
Benw
@BigJimSlade: yeah kinda rocky in Topanga. Sounds like you had some pretty good other options :)
JanieM
@CaseyL: LOL. I’ve had that feeling about gravity too…like, hello, it’s right there to meet up with your feet whenever you want to take a walk. Isn’t that amazing when you think about it? ;-)
Mary G
Being able to get to places like this is what keeps me from going crazy. Been almost everywhere everyone’s mentioned and it brings back many good memories. The rain was a pleasant surprise – since the pandemic I don’t keep up with forecasts because I don’t go anywhere! Have to get a blanket out tonight.
The first time I took LSD it was on the way to a Grateful Dead concert at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. Chief <can’t remember his name, had Chief Parker but he was too soon> had decided to crack down on us damn hippies and had a couple hundred LAPD officers stationed every few feet apart all around the walkway in front of us wearing those hard white helmets and watching one of them start to sway to the beat a little and then stop himself was all could see. Didn’t hear a note of music and I was furious.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oatler.: ‘Round these parts, it’s CA-14.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G:
LAPD has no jurisdiction at UCLA unless their help is requested by the Chancellor and that’s rare. They may have been unicops, but there aren’t that many of them.
BigJimSlade
@?BillinGlendaleCA: heh, looks like the scaffolding is a palm tree!
BigJimSlade
@Ruckus: Wow, sounds like your sister was amazing!
Regarding your accidental trip, do like mushrooms on pizza… or at DisneyLand, ba-dum-tssss (that’s supposed to be a rim shot sound, although you don’t really hit the rim of a drum on that).
BigJimSlade
@Benw: “yeah kinda rocky in Topanga” – exactly. I was going to say I need a sandy bottom, but that’s my stripper name. (I think I left a rim shot around here somewhere.)
Dmbeaster
I lived in Topanga Canyon from 1985 until 2009, and walked those trails and enjoyed the flowers. Its a wonderful place.
P Thomas
@BigJimSlade not sure how deep you want to go on the 564…but we were taught the 5640DM line on a 500 MB chart was the boundary between “continental polar” and “maritime tropical” air masses. The Jet stream “usually” follows that boundary. Weather north of the 564 is worse, compared to the weather south of it. Back in the day we would mark the 564 line on the 500 mb chart. In this article, search for “564” and there is a chart with a red line depicting the 564 line and a summary of this idea in more technical language.
https://www.vos.noaa.gov/MWL/dec_08/milibar_chart.shtml
If you are really old skool Socal, Dr. George would occasionally show viewers a 500 mb chart with the 564 line marked!
BigJimSlade
@P Thomas: Thanks for the extra info! I’m both still interested, and slowly walking backwards into the shrubs like that Homer Simpson gif, lol – ok, i’ll google it – here it is: https://media2.giphy.com/media/jUwpNzg9IcyrK/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e4766kqgadedabdv0kb7w40rb9icemhdyjdrrb2zmk6&rid=giphy.gif
Paul T
@BigJimSlade: If you are into charts: this is a link to this morning’s 500mb chart. The 564 label is in southern NM, and loops down around Baja and then back north in the Pacific. We are nicely inside the relatively cold polar air.
http://weather.southalabama.edu/SynopticPage/images/DIFAX/500/difax500_0.png
That 564 boundary is usually where the jet stream runs. This 300mb chart’s shaded area is where the jet stream is. If you looked at a radar summary on a bigger storm, it would also be where the precip would be (winter, mostly.)
http://weather.southalabama.edu/SynopticPage/images/DIFAX/300/difax300_0.png
BigJimSlade
Looks like a topo map – I guess the polar air weather moving that far south explains all the whitecaps on the ocean today and the couple of kite surfers just ripping it up!