Wandering Wednesday -Englishman River Falls

 One of the places we visited in Canada was Englishman River Falls, which is on Vancouver Island. It was a beautiful place to hike, not too hard, and there was a very interesting type of waterfall.

It was a very grey and maybe a rainy day, so we pre-gamed with some Tim Horton's (of course). My cousins tell me that it's terrible now that an American company has taken it over. I thought the coffee was decent and the donut was just so-so.

Everything was quite mossy, and there were a lot of warning signs, which DH was taking quite seriously as you can see illustrated here.

When I first saw the upper falls, I'll admit I was a bit confused. Not a traditional single cascade waterfall, this is more spread out, kind of like Niagara Falls is.

The water from the river comes down from a lot of angles and then it all funnels into this small slot canyon.

We decided to call it a Slot Falls.  Quite a lot of force! Apparently it is a dumb high school graduation dare to jump in there. Yes into the slot opening. Presumably the river is running much lower in June. But it doesn't turn out well for everyone. 

This is the view into the deep pool after the falls.

I was fascinated by the patterns of spinning white froth against the cliff edges.

It really was quite mossy!

Some very lovely Pacific Trillium.

Up above the falls, the river was moving swiftly but it was quite peaceful. There was a very wide swath of pebbly beach, when the rains or snowmelt are really going the whole thing is filled with water.

When you hike down the trail there's a point where you can look back up the canyon at the falls. It's really quite tight in there! The bridge we were on is visible up above.

The deep water was such a beautiful shade of green. I was fascinated by the wood debris, all the tree trunks stuck in various places and the large piles of wood left behind by the spring river flow.

A waterfall selfie was taken, of course.

The lower falls weren't as exciting, but I did love the deep green blue in contrast with all the moss and other rock growing plants.

There was a lot more visible action in the lower falls.

A truly amazing amount of moss!

We were really glad that my cousin recommended traveling up to this park, it was well worth the drive.

Wandering Wednesday: Getty Center Museum Gardens

 

On our way back from the LA Convention center area, we finally arranged our timing so we could stop off and see the Getty Center Museum. It was a gorgeous day, as you can see from the blue sky in this picture. The rough cut Travertine exterior of the museum was so fascinating, it has fossilized plants and animals randomly appearing.

I will be honest, the main reason I wanted to go see this place was this particular roof garden planted with cactus. I remember it 1was in Sunset Magazine back when it was established in 1997.

It's really something! I liked that we were up above the smog/haze layer in Los Angeles so that we could see the horizon.

It was quite hot so we did our outdoor exploring first. The central garden was truly a work of art, or as the garden's designer, Robert Irwin said: "is a sculpture in the form of a garden, which aims to be art." I saw the central knot formation on the map, and was looking forward to walking through the maze, but it was all water.

The pathways zig-zagged around the garden beds that surrounded the central water knot planting. 

Gorgeous flowers were bursting out of all the well designed garden beds.

This shows how far down you go to the bottom of the garden compared to the museum plaza level. 

This was one of our favorite things in the whole museum. Those "trees" are actually bougainvillea vines that are captured in welded rebar "trunk-ish" cages with a spreading grid at the top. 

Fascinating!

We sat underneath and admired the ingenuity (and the shade).

After our rest under the bougainvillea "trees", it was time to walk back up and go see some art.

Walking back up from the central garden you follow the flow of water along gentle zig-zagging pathways all planted with succulents and cactus.

It was so varied and beautiful, and very happy in that hot sun.

The movement of water and the beautiful plantings made it a very easy walk back up the hill.

Up at the very top the source of the water is this fascinating concave vessel fountain. A wonderful optical illusion.

The x marks the spot is the shadow of the grating where the water comes pouring down.

And this was all before we went inside and saw any inside art!

Wandering Wednesday: Bear Creek Redwoods Preserve

 

On the way home from a family lunch, we missed being able to go to the gym, so we stopped off at Bear Creek Redwoods Preserve for a little hike. I was at first reluctant to do it as I was full from lunch, but we were happy to find there was an easy trail on the other side of the road from the very steep trails.

Turns out it's the site of a former Jesuit school.

They've done a great job with planting out new native plants.

It was fun walking through this, we drive by this so often, all without ever knowing that it was even there!

This was the site of the old mansion, which burned down and was knocked down by the 1906 earthquake. There was a picture of it, and the boulder in front made a lot more sense.

A former parking garage/living area for the Jesuit students. 

Looks like they built around an enormous oak tree, you can see the trunk remains in the cutout, and on the corner of the wall, there's a piece of one of the trunks surrounded by bricks. It grew into the wall!

I don't know why, but this cracked me up, the different bunches and types of grass growing on the top of each brick column.

A plant possibly related to Jasmine.

The clouds were super pretty looking out over the Lexington Reservoir hills.

The top of the trail we hiked on came out on an overlook over Highway 17.

It got very cloudy and muggy as we hit the halfway point. The sun was going too, and the park gates lock at dusk (which is when exactly?)

Surprise daffodils (narcissus) along one of the "ruins" brick walls. This was far away from the rest of the buildings on the Radio Hill trail.

Might oak roots vs. brick wall.

More oak root action on walls.

A teeny tiny lizard in the crevice.

Story of my life, beautiful poison oak, absolutely everywhere, and even growing out of a brick wall!

There are so many more trails for us to try out, I think we'll be stopping by many more times.

Wandering Wednesday - Uvas Canyon County Park

 

We're still trying to get out there and go hiking somewhere every weekend, and this past weekend in-between rainstorms on Valentine's Day (we made parking reservations in January) we hiked with my SIL and BIL at Uvas Canyon County Park. They had been hiking there before and had always recommended it, so they were very kind to function as our tour guides.

I had never been in this part of Morgan Hill before, it's really lovely. Just a couple mountain ranges over from us, but still an hour and half drive.

SIL and DH taking pictures of BIL walking up the trail along the first waterfall.

There he is, almost blending in.

Then DH had to hike up and join him of course.

It was very mossy and wet around all the waterfalls of course, and the air has that wonderful extra oxygen feeling.

I wasn't about to try and scramble up those mossy wet rocks, I was very glad there was a trail even though it was quite steep.

Probably Turkey Tail, aren't they lovely?

Either Witch's Butter or Orange Jelly Spot, jelly fungus which grows on dead trees. Such a brilliant bright color on a dark cloudy day. Especially with the contrast of the bright green moss.

Lots of downed trees throughout the hike, but this gully was really a mess.

I always love when I notice an "eye" on a tree trunk. That was a 3.5 mile hike with a lot of elevation gain, so we were both a little sore the next day. But very glad that we 

• Got out of the house 
• Saw our family 
• Went on a hike in a new place. 

The bonus was finding a rather awesome ramen place in Morgan Hill to get an early dinner.