Terrain change
Wednesday, 21 December 2016
We began the day with a beach-visit, and rewarded with mists in the inlets and expanses of shadows and sunlight, and just pure ocean loveliness. And haystacks.
Then, we tried closed-in views beneath massive redwoods and their forest friends, which include low-down rotting sibling redwoods and green ferns.
This pile-up will stick with me. Three giants that, over time, fell atop one another. I think the top one came down since we were here last, and the bottom two must be darned strong to make a REDwood splinter like that. You have no visual scale…these each would take something like five-or-more people to reach around (if you could get to them).
As we rolled among the mountains, if we crossed or went along a river, we saw more mist, as we had at the coast. Very decorative.
To pass logging trucks and hay trucks and refrigerator trucks, JCB sometimes used Ludicrous* mode. Very vroom!
We turned inland, and discovered Californ-y has a lake country. Reservoirs, really, but even sailboats.
We’re really heading inland at this point, with the redwood forests and higher rainfall of the coast behind us, replaced by these mossy oaks, some very gnarly.
Ah, the continuing lowered rainfall…the mountains are now hills, and trees are fewer and particular about where their feet are…drainages preferred….
And, whoop! Around the last curve and over a hill, and we faced flat. Central Valley flat. Massive flatness. Of course, there’s a downhill trend, but most of the other variation has been removed by zealous agriculturalists, making our home grocery stores’ bounty of fragile veggies possible through our winter months.
We also discovered that the flat ground hosts terrible traffic backups. Lost the better part of an hour in three of them. One hoped-for escape route that we tried ended in a surprise “road closed”; Plan Z required!
* “Ludicrous” term thanks to Mel Brooks. Homages on the screen are as recent as “Good Behavior,” where it was applied to a Tesla. Hrumph; Prius Primes, too!