HAPPY SPRING -

 From here on out I hope to post photos on my blog to remind me of where I am going to be during the next three seasons before winter shows up again.  I told myself at the end of fall last year I was going to try and find different trails to walk on - trails that I don't already know about.  

Today, since we are going down the mountain to Aldi and  few stores, I tried to find a trail somewhat close to where we will be.  I found one and it will be fun to discover what its' like.  It's in the foothills over near where I posted photos this last month about the casino.  

Yesterday we went to "Silverwood Lake" which is a huge lake and our overflow water here at Lake Gregory eventually goes down to Silverwood where there is a dam and a lot of different trails we have yet to discover.  We only went  on the  power company's, Edison, utility road that eventually goes to their towers.  It goes on a long way but we did a short walk because at one point it dipped down and I didn't have hiking shoes on so didn't feel like taking a slide down the trail.  You can see in the photo how far this road goes up through the foothills.  

Here are a few photos from yesterday.  It wasn't until I saw the photos i realized Mike's shirt matched the lake. We were able to see the lake from up above.  We have a good view and could see across to the high desert.  A few years back a huge fire ran through some of this area.  

I'm looking forward to our trip out today to see what this trail we found on the internet ...will actually look like.  

EVERY MONTH A TRIP DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

 I basically posted these because of the colors.  I get tired of posting photos with snow in them.  

We go once a month down the mountain and get on the freeway and head east for about 10 minutes or so to go to some of our favorite stores.  Aldi is one of them.   I don't know if you have them where you live but their prices are amazing.  We also have narrowed down what we buy at Wal-Mart so we are normally in and out in  15 minutes.  Then there is a  Ross and an Applebees in the same shopping center.  It feels good to get out of a small town and do a little shopping.  These photos I took a week or so ago  as we left the shopping area to go home.

So my son John works at a big Casino recently renamed Yaamava but was named San Manuel.   In the photos I'm showing first is of the casino but this one structure up there in the next photos  I finally found out it is the Tribal headquarters .    All this property in the hills there  belong to the Indian tribe of San Manuel.  They even have their own fire department.  There are many beautiful homes in those hills.

The last three photos are taken as we are getting off the freeway to go to the shopping center.  They aren't on Indian land but I love the views.  That mountain in the distance with snow on it is Big Bear. This top photo was taken from the passenger side as we were heading east and i had to take the photo through the windshield.  i was surprised it turned out.

SNOWING NOW AND WILL PROBABLY BE ABOUT THE SAME AS LAST SNOW THAT WAS FINALLY STARTING TO MELT

 Here are a few pics from the last one.  I love the view out Red Rock turnout and in this photo the altitude here is about 4600 or a little more I believe.  In these photos you can see that the day after our snow the hills below had nothing as it was already starting to melt.  We, however, keep our snow for what seems like a month after it falls.  I've probably said before, I never want to live on the shady side of the mountain again.  At least our days our longer and we are getting more sun shining into the yard to melt the snow quicker.  

Happy Tuesday and all that it means this year - lots of 2's.

Oh yeah, every time I walk by this tree on the trail this rock in the middle of it is smiling at me or maybe smirking.

I don't know who that guy is in the bottom photo but he is definitely enjoying the view.

I LOVE TRAIN PHOTOS.

 Every time we go up the 15 fwy going which is a route to Vegas - we would turn off at the 2 hwy and go to Wrightwood where we lived for about a year and  a half before we moved to these mountains.  Before we ever moved to the mountains we lived in foothills with a view of the mountains for about 30 years and all those years looking at the mountains I never actually thought I would live up in them.  

Wrightwood was a small mountain community (too small for me) but certainly charming.    One of my favorite scenes when we were going in to the area or coming out and was to see the trains.  I know somewhere in all my photo files I have many photos of these trains in all kinds of weather.  Here are a few I found recently. They were taken this last year.  

Right now because of rain and snow the hills are green again, but these were taken during summer last year so they look pretty dry.  My youngest son - the only one who still lives in California lives not far from this area so every once in awhile i catch a glimpse of them when we visit him as these trains come down south and go under the freeway.  The last photo is closer to his house.  I was able to photograph that one while we were about two exits from getting off the fwy to go to his place.

I felt like posting something different than the many many many mountains photos I take and never get posted.  We have snow coming again tomorrow.  I hope it just leaves a dusting.  

AT THE TOP OF STRAWBERRY PEAK and SOME SUNSETS OVER THE LAST WEEK

 We drove up to the peak the other day and there was still some ice on the narrow road going up that still hadn't melted after a month.  Tomorrow we may get snow again as the weather is changing  after having winds and warmer temps.  I don't think we will get more than an inch or so.  

Although I don't find cell towers attractive i did like the way it looked with the clouds in the background.

A few photos of the blinding sun we get this time of year as it sets over the ocean.  In one of them, third photo down you can see the ocean which is well over 60 miles from where we are and on certain days you can make out Catalina Island which is even farther.  

The clouds were fairly high up the day this first one was taken.