Country Lanes

Country lanes and roads of Canyon Country.

Road down into the wash. 

Lost Canyon. Or so it seems. 

Country lane, complete with ruts.  

A river runs through it.  The train is OK, it goes overhead on its own bridge.  I watched one truck drive through spinning his wheels mightily to make it through.  There was also a dirt biker driving around, but I wasn't here when he went through.  

View from the other direction.  Confluence of train trestle, road and wash. 

Oak Spring Canyon Road.  There's a tree in the road that I was mightily anticipating photoing, but a vehicle was parked in front with the driver just sitting there, and I didn't get my shots. 

Vistas and Found Items: A Miscellania

A last collection of pictures from today's walk.  I took approximately a four mile walk through Canyon Country after the recent spate of storms.  This is the last of five sets of photos. 

House with four windows and a deck. 

Deck without four windows or a house.  One heckuva long deck.  

 Freeway.  What collection of shots of Los Angeles would be complete without a freeway shot? 

Found item.  What's in your cart?  

Two boys on the flood plain.  The older one is about to show the younger one how to throw rocks in the water.  

Horse farm, bridge and houses. 

A river, result of the recent rains.  

Puddles in the field.  

Canyon Country Cavern.  

Choo Choo!

Patterns created by running water: Mud waves and water waves

Shots of river and water runoff immediately following a strenuous long running series of southern Californian rainstorms.  I love these pictures; in the past shots of water in the Santa Clarita wash did not turn out, but these came out beautifully.  There are more, but I didn't want to dilute their beauty by inundating you with too many photos. 

Mud waves.  The water is actually gone from this picture, except at the bottom.  Those waves were carved into the mud by the water rushing over the mud.  When the water recedes, mud waves are left. 

A close up of the previous picture.  This is a separate photo, not a blow-up.  The bush on the lower right of the previous picture must have blown out of the way for this shot.  

A different shot of mud waves. Erotic and repugnant all at the same time. 

These are water ripples.  This is a constant pattern, I didn't need to wait for the pattern to show up, it was there consistently.  

A separate, close-up shot of the same location.  Because this is water, not mud, the ripples may change location between these shots.  

Found items

Oddball items I found lying around Canyon Country. 

Now who put that mountain behind a perfectly good 76 sign? 

Can't you see the man of steel sneaking around bending this metal part of a sewer drain when nobody was looking?  

Yeah yeah, it says its high voltage, but you know what it really was?  A chain link fence.  Go figure.  

Golf tee?  Bird bath?  Monument to a beloved robot?  Okay, its a sprinkler head.  

Either its a modern art metal welded sculpture of a grasshopper or its another sprinkler head. 

Some people are a little unclear on the concept.  Doh, boss, does dis one go here?  

What's this you ask?  It's a stylized bicycle, that's what.  If you lay your bicycle down here, it'll get run over in about thirty seconds.  

I swear I'm not making this up.  That's a tree trunk in the shape of a teapot hanging from the overhead electrical (or maybe cable) wire.  

I feel so much better now that I know this.  

This door will keep your friendly neighborhood burglar out of your house, provided he's at least 400 pounds. 

Portrait of traffic light with photographer.  

Trees

A collection of trees in Canyon Country.  First day with sun after a week of heavy rains.  The clouds in later photos are very rare animals indeed. 

An intimate portrait of new leaves.

Two trees on the hill.  

Two more trees.  One real, one fake.  Ok ok.  Palm trees are real too.  

Clouds coming in.  This might be a cotton tree.  

Dead tree standing.  

Living tree standing.  

This picture is going in, good or not.  Chopped down tree.  I couldn't count the tree rings, but it looked to be pretty old.  

Portrait of a living tree.  

Tree in a field.