Big changes

Today, after last night's big rainstorm, Los Angeles woke up cool, sunny, and refreshed. But as soon as I headed up into the hills north of the city the clouds closed in, then I was driving through a downpour. That's the way it went all day long: playing hopscotch with rain squalls between patches of blue sky, sun, and the occasional rainbow. Better yet, from Valencia north the land was green everywhere in a way I haven't seen it this whole trip - from snowy DC to the winter-brown South and arid Southwest. Very cheering.

After a delightful breakfast in Valencia with Liz and Pat I headed west to U.S. 101, a very civilized expressway that allows bikes on the shoulders and follows the gorgeous rugged coast for a way. When it was clear that the 101 had definitely left the Pacific I headed west again to Morro Bay and California route 1, which took me past the Hearst Castle at San Simeon and then shrank to a twisting two-lane mountain road that clambered up and down the steep hillsides fronting the Pacific. I went nuts with the camera (not while driving on this road, I stopped every time!) but here's the best photo, I think - it has the hills, the surf, the constant wandering rain clouds, everything but the sun that wasn't much in evidence for more than 100 miles on the 1, until just before Monterey.

Then 45 minutes from San Jose, my destination, when I had crossed back eastward to the 101, I hit a real California traffic jam. (No novelty to a Washintonian, though I take care to live where I can get to work without driving.) In 50 minutes we had moved maybe two miles. Then the tow trucks appeared and in minutes the jam dissolved. I wasn't late for anything but would have preferred not to finish the drive in the dark.

So I'm settled in here with Alex and Sigrid for a week or so. I'll be in touch with you folks in SF, Oakland, and Boulder Creek - I can't wait to see you (and to do two weeks' laundry and take Penny in for her 40,000-mile well-baby checkup).