Jan 1, 2013

I am extremely optimistic about this year. Today I took a stroll on the Santa Margarita Plateau - cleverly going as dusk approached. Forgot to take my knife and there were a few minutes there when I felt a little insecure. As if I could fight a mountain lion with a knife anyway. A friend of mine was shadowed by a mountain lion when she was walking alone there once. It followed her in a parallel path. Eeek. I think she was too skinny to bother with.  It is also where you go in October or so to see tarantulas lining the trails. Or scorpions. One of those.

I used all of my Girl Scout training and showed up with shoes that were more or less slippers, no knife, no water, and neglected to look at a map of the trails. Luckily, I am still here to tell the tale. 

 Coyote - was lucky enough to see this guy right about when I began the hike

 And again

 Always looking for that road less traveled

 Closest thing we have to birch - sycamore (I think)

 Sage - the smell of wild California

There is no shortage of rock outcroppings:

 The mighty oak. Took me awhile to get used to the western oak. 

I have grown to appreciate them though

 I believe this is oak gall but I would not swear to it

 Oak leaves. When I first came I thought these were related to holly - did not know they were oak.

 As dusk approached all I could think of were mountain lions.

 Looking east to a typical chaparral habitat, backed by Mount San Jacinto. On the other side of the mountain is Palm Springs.

 Your intrepid hiker. Hey, at least I had a jacket.

When I got back to town, I saw this. The picture is not as good as the view. As the sun set you could see one of the foothills looking like a flat red cardboard cutout. Blow it up to see it a little better (just click on it.)