The View from Here

The drive from Paso Robles to my brother's home in Fallbrook is an interesting trip through a number of ecosystems and periods of California history.. Paso Robles, an old Spanish town with a big central square, is on a long plateau scattered with cattle ranches and vineyards. It was overcast but clearing when we drove out of town.

At the end of the plateau we descended the Cuesta, a steep grade into San Luis Obispo. Backed up against the surrounding hills, the moisture in the clouds turned to rain, which might explain why it looked a bit greener there.

Further south, we hit the coast at Pismo Beach. Long sandy beaches line the coast, RV's park beside the road, and houses and businesses sit at the top of the cliffs overlooking the sea. 

Santa Barbara, a prosperous community which carefully guards it's Spanish architectural heritage, overlooks a number of large offshore oil platforms. OilMan informed me that the palm covered island at the end of a long jetty is actually a "fake" island harboring oil wells. The jetty is an outdated pipeline which would now be built underwater. The shoulder was filled with parked vehicles of people working on cleaning up a spill from an old pipeline which sprang a leak and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the water and onto the beaches.

We climbed a hill and began our descent into the Los Angeles Basin, freeway widening, traffic increasing and views diminishing as we made our way through the San Fernando Valley to Pasadena, Azusa and Rancho 
 Cucumonga to name a few of the towns which run together along the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.

As we headed down toward San Diego, the terrain changed yet again into dessert with boulder strewn hills. The turnoff into Fallbrook is marked by a huge palm nursery…palms of every size and description providing a nice patch of green. Avacados were once the main crop here. Many trees, which burned in a huge fire that destroyed several parts of town in 2007 are beginning to be replanted. The dark green trees in my picture, taken from Rick's patio, are are an old grove which survived the fire.

Rick and Meg were lucky. The fire burned up the river canyon, hidden in my picture in the canyon beneath the avocado trees, and up the slope topped by the grasses to their back door. The firefighters made a stand in their driveway and were able to save all the houses on the ridge, which is why I am able to sit here today and enjoy the view.