It's six months now, and I can tell you, it's time for a quick trip to Southern California, particularly since the winter-break trip was a delightful-mixed CA-AZ ramble and the spring sojourn was non-existant, what with the non-overlapping vacations of DVC and St. Mary's (plus, the weather's been unusually unsettled for this time of year). So back on the road again,
against the arid-grassy inner Coast Ranges, to where I's 5 and 580 join
north of
Westley / Ingram Creek,
then south past Del Puerto Canyon,
the sole sycamore corridor
at Newman along Orestimba Creek,
descending to Los Banos Valley
where a relatively recent homestead against the freeway presages the approach of
Santa Nella's
Ramada Mission de Oro.
From here, down to the runoff channel of San Luis Reservoir,
past ominous orchards,
up over a Coast Range shoulder
to Panoche Mountain
and Exit, north of the
serrated ridges of
Joaquin Rocks Valley.
The iPod is just about out of power, which is a good enough excuse to take in the palmy
surreal
splendors and
lonely
eccentricity of the
pungeantly windswept
Harris Ranch, spending an hour in the classically-musicked bar with a biscuit, milkshake (how positively sober), and another page orchestrated of Elijah Rock, thanks to the wonders of the laptop.
Onward. To the side canyons of
Kettleman Hills and
City, where the
crossroads are even lonelier;
across the southern San Joaquin Valley to the canals of
Lost Hills,
of stark power lines
attended by the roadside enterprises near Buttonwillow and
Stockdale Highway, as
the southern Sierra and
Transverse Ranges come into focus near
Mettler-Maricopa,
aquaducts rising into the Temblor Range.
And up we go by Grapevine
Mountain,
through the steep walls of the Canyon,
to the high-country
near Fort Tejon,
stopping briefly
below Frazier Mountain
at its namesake Park.
Over Tejon Summit, it's all downhill approaching Black Mountain,
above Pyramid Lake,
below the Old Ridge Route,
across from Whitaker Peak
past Paradise Valley / Canton Canyon,
down the suburban-encroached Violin Grade,
to uncertain preservation at Rye, reaching John Browning's early enough that we can still head out to a local spot in
San Bernardino before mixing a section of
A Walk Through California, Op. 151: San Bernardino.
