The light was getting better and better for pictures, which meant the sun was going down.
I couldn’t resist stopping for frequent pictures in this great light, especially since I knew I had climbed my last hard hill for the day, but I knew I’d better keep scooting along to get back to my car before daylight ran out.
As I came to the top of the steepest, longest grade of the day, the ocean unfolded in all its magnificence.
As I rode my last downhill mile back to the car, I passed about a hundred tourists standing with cameras poised on the bluffs outside of Jenner, at the mouth of the Russian River, to capture the vision of the sun going down over the scenic rocks scattered off in the water.
In Northern California, the moon has more trouble pushing up through shaggy trees. In Southern California, mostly it goes up between palm trees and very seldom gets entangled.
These stones offshore in the fog were incredible; I could have watched them for days if I didn’t have to keep moving. The soundtrack was something from Myst, distant washing waves and an occasional gull’s scree. I shot video too, to try to capture the sound, but it was too subtle for the camera and mostly sounded like a dull hiss, except when cars whoosh by. In three dimensions, the lopsided rhythm of rushing surge and then silence, now over here, now far over there, created an intriguing aural space to go with these looming giant teeth, abstract shapes half shrouded at the outer edge of what can be seen.
Meanwhile, when it wasn’t burning somewhere, today was a nice day for a bike ride. I’m still focusing on hills; I climbed 3,770 feet today in 55 miles. Up, down, over, up again, down again, back over, and like that. One advantage of this plan is that you get to enjoy many great vistas.
When I started out, the air was baking hot, but by the time I got back, some less hot air had started moving in from offshore. Not cool air, maybe, but less hot. I refilled my bottles a few times along the way.
Shot these last weekend from below. This time I took a matching picture from above.
Catalina Island lies 26 miles offshore, shrouded in mist.
A cruise ship slowly steams away from San Pedro; a container ship unloads.
The Catalina ferry returns past Angels Gate.
The Gerald Desmond Bridge leads to Long Beach’s downtown, near my home.
A lot of energy is being released in the mountains north of Los Angeles.
These pictures were taken from the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, about 30 miles south of the fires. The big fire in these shots is the “Station” fire, which started a few days ago in the canyons behind La Cañada-Flintridge. It has spread considerably beyond that by now, both east and west, and to some degree north and south. These pictures are looking almost straight north.
As of tonight, total area burned is more than 65 square miles, and with hot dry weather forecast through at least tomorrow, the multiple firelines show no sign of showing down.
Downtown Los Angeles is safely separated from the burning mountains, but it’s not far enough away to avoid the pall of smoke and flying ash.
The cloud over the city makes even the mightiest skyscraper look tiny and inconsequential.
Last night I finished reading a novel centered on a (fictional) event that took place during the six-day riot that scorched Watts and neighboring communities in 1965. I wasn’t around to see that smoke cloud, but I have a feeling the one towering over Los Angeles this week is of a whole different order of magnitude.
Yesterday I deliberately didn’t ride hard, and didn’t take this road around the perimeter of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, because there had been a fire back here. I didn’t want to be working my lungs too hard if there was going to be a lot of smoke, and I wanted to stay out of the way of emergency crews.
The fire consumed about 235 acres. (A square mile is 640 acres.) It damaged six homes and destroyed a couple of “outbuildings,” as they call structures that aren’t homes. It’s pretty easy to imagine it being worse.
As you can see, the fire burned right up next to a few homes, and it wasn’t far below some others. That had to make for some nervous hours for homeowners.
The headline-grabbing fires have been in the San Gabriel mountains; the biggest right now has scorched 42,500 acres, and is only 5% contained. Homes have been destroyed; more are threatened; families have had to evacuate; the fire may knock out broadcast television in the Los Angeles area when it crests Mount Wilson, where many antennas are located.
