FROM OUR TRIP TO MT. BALDY ON HALLOWEEN

 Getting back to some photos from Halloween.   Being that Mt. Baldy is in a different mountain range than we are, their plants and trees are somewhat different than we have in our area.  All this is dependent on the soil and angle and topography of the area and so much more i have no idea about. 

What I love as we drive along are what is called the "Our Lord's Candle" or "Yucca Wipplei" .  These are the cactus looking plants you see in the photos.  I haven't seen them anywhere in our mountains.

I won't go into describing the various places we stopped at as it's only of interest to me but what we went up to do that day changed as the amount of cars along the road told us the trails behind the old Ice House that burned down years ago, were going to be crowded with people.  

Anyway it was a beautiful day and our next trip out that will take at least an hour  and a half or more to get to is either going to be Palm Springs area and up to the high desert out there or back to Baldy.  

During the winter we like to go places we won't go in summer when the temps are high.

In the past we usually always stopped at the Mt. Baldy Restaurant but sometimes we would stop in at the Buckthorn (pictured at the bottom of the post).  An older couple owned the place - the big building in the center was where they served food, drinks and the woman would entertain the crowds with her singing.  One time we went up there and her husband invited us in to the building on the left which was his place to sit and drink - he had a smaller bar in there and I think this was like his "man" cave.   We enjoyed many nice times up at Baldy - great memories.

(sis - i think you'll enjoy seeing these and hope we can both go back some day to hike behind the Ice House).