Sometimes, when I am not stuck on the freeways fuming like my car, and can look down on them and see the flowing lines, interconnecting, and think, for a moment, that they are beautiful. Looking south over the 101 freeway, on the bridge at the base of Mulholland Drive. Cahuenga Blvd is on the right, [...]

Some might say that The Donut Summit in Elysian Park was just an excuse to sit in the park on a sunny afternoon and eat donuts. Well, yes. Two park benches covered with donuts from all over Los Angeles. Those pink boxes lined up to heaven. Donut croquet. “who thought it was a good idea [...]

Touring the Historic Los Angeles Theatre District      “There’s one million square feet of unused space in downtown Los Angeles,” said Larry, our tour guide, as we walked up and down Broadway, the old heart of the theatre district.      It was Thursday night, and Broadway was relatively quiet, except for the occasional homeless person [...]

Wild Flowers on the San Merrill Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains above Alta Dena. Globe Gilia Gilia capitata (Orange?) bush monkeyflower Mimulus aurantiacus Indian paintbrush Castilleja Lacy Phacelia Phacelia tanacetifolia Deerweed Lotus scoparius Globe Gilia Gilia capitata Golden Yarrow Eriophyllum confertiflorum Prickly Phlox Leptodactylon californicum

Wild Flowers on the San Merrill Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains above Alta Dena. Orange bush monkeyflower Mimulus aurantiacus Golden Yarrow Eriophyllum confertiflorum Red larkspur Delphinium nudicaule Red larkspur Delphinium nudicaule

The hills of California are blooming. All of the flowers, 31 pictures in all, over the next three posts, were taken on the bottom half of the San Merrill trail, [link to my blog post on hiking this trail], just above the city of Alta Dena. I have done my best to name some of [...]

Beth Israel is a packed cemetery. Full of concrete and stones. There is no grass, no open green land, this is a cemetery of a city. Where rows of concrete rectangles sit line after line after line. Like neat row houses standing next to each other up a crowded street. There were two things that [...]

Title: Hiking Mount Disappointment was disappointing because it wasn’t a disappointment. …no, that’s not right. Hiking Mount Disappointment was sadly not a disappointment at all. …hmmm. With a name like disappointment, it has to be good. …no, that’s horrible. If you want disappointment, don’t hike Mount Disappointment. Ok, that’s enough dreadful titles, on with the [...]

Beth Israel is a tiny cemetery just east of Downtown Los Angeles. On the entrance gate was a small sign advertising headstone replacement photographs. There are a number of headstones that have photographs mounted near the top. They look like over-sized lockets. There is something beautiful and haunting about the faces looking out from the [...]

April 10, 2011, and bicycles take over the streets of Los Angeles. Well, they take over some streets, for a few hours. But it was a beautiful sight. CicLAvia (their blog is here) is 5 hours on a Sunday afternoon where automobiles are disbarred from certain streets so bicycles and pedestrians can take over. The [...]

Tucked into the residential neighborhood of San Marino, an upscale community in the San Gabriel Valley, 20 miles east of Los Angeles is a cemetery. The cemetery is an accurate reflection of the surrounding homes and streets. Quiet, subdued, some might even call it boring. But there are moments, details, that make it interesting, and [...]

     This is, I know, not the way to start a hiking article, but here goes:      Don’t go on this hike.      I guess that sort of shoots down any reason for reading this article, but there is a reason to not go on this hike.      The reason is that this is not [...]