Lag BaOmer In Southern California

This past week I was at Camp Pendleton at the ExFOB event (Here are some videos the Marine Corps posted from the event, I will post more in the future as they do.  Hopefully some will have me in them).  Camp Pendleton is in northern San Diego County, and as you may have heard there are some fires.  So to start you off I will show you some pictures of ground squirrels in the middle of the field where the event was held.

I will follow this up with pictures of MV-22 Ospreys I saw flying at Camp Pendleton.

Friday morning I woke up with my rental car covered in ash, and while driving home after the event I noticed that it was 110 degrees outside.

Now that I have spent all this time building up to it I will show you why no one will be lighting bonfires for Log BaOmer in my area.

 This fire was about six kilometers from where I was, and there where a few times that I saw flames.

 The ash and smoke from these fires made it all the way to Los Angeles (about 100 miles away) where there are air quality warning in places.

This is the results of a small fire that occurred on the side of I-5 after a vehicle collision last Wednesday, that closed I-5 northbound.

Continued Winter Exploits

As I have established in some prior posts, here and here, winter in southern CA isn't all that harsh.  In fact I took a picture of my outside thermometer Monday afternoon.

Just shy of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and about 60% humidity.

I used this nice weather to install a hummingbird feeder, I will keep you updated if I see any hummingbirds (I have seen them on bird of paradise flowers in my area).

Here are some of the plants I have out on my balcony.  In the forefront you can see my strawberries (lots of strawberries in southern CA).  Then I have two rosemary plants, the one in the middle is a ground crawling one designed for ground cover and is currently flowering.

A close up of the rosemary flowers, with a basil plant behind it.

Wintertime in Southern California

 My mother has been visiting me for a week.  Sunday we went whale watching.

Harbor Seals.

 

Here we have an offshore oil rig in its natural habitat.  We did not want to get to close and risk spooking it.

 Anacapa Island one of the five islands that make up the Channel Islands National Park.  The park itself extends one mile into the water around each of the five islands.

 Seabirds, there are examples of California Brown Pelican, Cormorant, and Blue Footed Booby.

 The birds in the middle are Blue Footed Booby.

California Brown Pelican.

Sea Lion.

A whole bunch of sea lions.

Two gray whales.  They where about 45 feet long.

The boat we where on.

 Me with Giant Coreopsis a plant that is all over the Channel Islands (photo credit: my mother).

Me with a fake elephant seal, they can grow to almost twice the size of this one (photo credit: my mother).

Botanical Gardens in January

This past Sunday I decided to go check out some botanical gardens in the LA area.  Thanks to the New York Botanical Gardens Reciprocal Program I can explore multiple gardens without having to worry about admission fees.  Some of you might say isn't this the wrong season for a trip to a botanical garden, to this I will respond "It was in the mid 70s to 80 Sunday (now I am sticking my tongue out at you midwest/east coast)."  To be fair not a lot of flowers blooming, but the gardens I went to where lovely.  The first garden I went to was the Descanso Gardens.

 While wondering around on one of the off the path paths (dirt paths off the paved ways), I came across this little guy.

On another off the beaten path I came across these flowers (and yes it does appear that the plant has some kind of fungal infection).

A flower caught in a little waterfall.

Because there was not a lot blooming the trip to the garden was more like a really long walking trail through a nice area.  So I was able to go through the whole garden rather quickly, so I decide to check out another garden.  The Japanese Gardens/Tillmann Water Treatment Plant and yes its a water reclamation plant with a Japanese garden right next to it.

 This is a closeup of the egret that is in the previous picture.

I can see my house?

We took the red eye back from San Francisco, and we arrived in NYC at sunrise. In this picture, I think my house is visible, but I didn't recognize where we were until it was almost too late:

You can see the George Washington Bridge on the lower right, and I believe Teaneck is generally in the middle-left region of this picture.

Here's a better shot of the GWB as we flew over the Hudson River:

Here's one final view, that may include my house, possibly CCNY, but definitely includes the GWB, upper Manhattan, and the Bronx:

Berkeley Bumper Stickers

We stayed in Berkeley on our recent trip. This is a collection of some bumper stickers we saw around there (click the pictures to embiggen):

Home Birth Rockstar

My dog ate the weapons of mass destructi☢n

Shame they ran out of space