WILL ROGERS STATE PARK

 First thing this morning we left Santa Clarita and headed to Will Rogers State Park for our morning walk in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Of course, as our luck would have it, the house tour at the park was not open on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  But, there are great trails to walk, which was obvious, by all the locals that were taking their morning walks here, too.

We walked up a trail called 'Inspiration Point' which wound around up to a lookout point where we could see the surrounding area and out to the ocean.  There were lots of wild flowers, shrubs and birds.  The weather was perfect, but cloudy with marine air.  I like it.

I was fascinated by these beautifully symmetrical flowers? weeds? seeds?

When we got back to the pickup, we notice something hanging down underneath.  It was some kind of shroud.  Darrell was able to get underneath and unscrew the last screw holding in place, it was hand tight.  We called the local Chevrolet dealer and headed to Van Nuys.  We had 10:30 tickets for The Getty, but, we were not going to be able to make it there unfortunately. 

 The Van Nuys dealer wouldn't honor the work done at our Chev dealer and wanted $80 or something to put the other screws back in place.  They said there were no other problems and we could leave it off until we get home.  Which we did and went on our way.  Next stop Pasadena.

SPRING ARRIVES!

Wow, what a great weekend. Finally, some nice weather. The husband and I took advantage of it both days. Saturday, he got the bikes out (after a long winter's storage), dusted them off and aired up the tires. That lead to some general cleaning out of the garage first. We loaded the bikes up and grabbed the dog and headed to Alki. We knew it was going to be crowded, but my goodness - it was crowded! I've got a plastic milk crate mounted on the back of my bike for the dog. She wears a harness and gets cross-tied in so she can't get out (even if we go down!). This was only the second time she's done this, the first time was right after we got her, way back in November, when she was being on her best behavior. Well, those days are long gone. Lucy immediately started whining and trying to get out. We went about a mile, and then stopped. I couldn't take it anymore. I tried letting her trot along side. That worked better than I thought, although it slowed us down quite a bit. We didn't get even 50 feet, when she stopped suddenly and pooped...I guess that was the problem all along! (yes, I had a bag) We let her trot along side for another half mile or so, until it got too crowded with walkers and bikers and skaters and we put her back in the box where she rode pretty good the rest of the way.

Sunday was another beautiful day, even warmer. We took the bikes to Fort Dent and rode down the Interurban trail, where there are very few walkers, and it was early enough that there were not many bikers, either. We let Lucy trot alongside for quite a while, she did great. I worry she'll cross in front of me and I'll run over her, and bounce on the pavement (not good). But she stayed straight and true, like she's done this somewhere else before. Who knows? Maybe she has.

When we got back from the ride and did our chores I headed up into the studio, I was once again inspired to work on the dreadful painting I'd left on my easel. So, I think it's looking better, but its one I really don't care for. And I think I know why, finally. I'm doing this from a photo I took in California, the LA area I think. The freeways down there are different from the ones I see here all the time. And I don't like it's supports.

Have you ever noticed that all the freeways are individualistic? The supports and rails and under-stuff is all different in different areas. I can pretty much tell you about the freeways in King County, especially the older ones. And I have my favorites.

Anyway, here's the latest version of my last post, I completely changed the sky and the coloring. I'm liking it a lot more, although I had to get out my itsy-bitsy tiny brush to finish up some of the bad parts.