Soon the view won't be so fair from this part of Fairview Road. Over 800 houses are in the process of being built there.  We've got developments growing all around our town. The not-so-affordable houses replace the orchards and truck farms. My stomach turns every time I drive by a development.

"It's snowing!" "Did you see the snow on the mountains?" Everyone we talked to yesterday, both friends and strangers, bubbled ebulliently about the snow on the mountain ridges around us. "I don't have to go to the Sierras now," said a guy in the Target parking lot. Not that it was a lot of snow. Simply a decent dusting on the forward peaks that lasted all day and a thick enough coating on the back peaks to be saying "Hello! Snow here!" today. The temperatures have been in the 30s and 40s, which probably sound like the tropics to some of you. I don't recall the last time our tap water is as cold as water in a mountain lake. It tastes refreshing. It has probably been 10 years, more or less, since we've seen snow in our area. Last time, the Husband and I drove up to the end of a long country road to wander in the snow and throw a snowball at each other. Not this time. We were afraid of flooding Eliza if we went thr...

"Slow down," shouted me, leaning out the passenger door window. "Elk!" The Husband obliged. Click, click. "There are buffalo, too," I exclaimed. The Husband took me for my word. His cataracts don't let him see the details in the far distance. The animals were probably a city block or so away. Of course, we weren't in a city, but on the back road behind Mt. Hamilton, in San Jose, on the way to Patterson, a Central Valley town next to Interstate 5.  That was last month on one of my birthday adventures in Sedgwick, the rental car. Today I enlarged and sharpened and did Photoshop voodoo on the digital shots until I got good enough photos. The buffalo were cattle. So much for my eyes. The other creature certainly was a gorgeous young elk buck. He looked as if he was posing for me. A tourist with her dagnabbit camera. Click, click. The dude was a tule elk, which supposedly is found only in the grassy and marshy areas of California. I read ...

Recently the Husband and I found a not-so-often-traveled road that skirted the northern side of a nearby mountain. Entry to the road is in very deep shade. We came across it years ago, but we backed out after a few feet because the road looked like it would be an unpaved, pitted one. We didn't think Eliza, our 1993 metal steed, would fare well on it. I don't know why we felt confident that an older Eliza wouldn't complain a couple of weeks ago. The road had not a hole to carefully maneuver over or around. The road reminded me of the fire and logging roads in deep forests. Well, duh, we were going through a second or third generation growth redwood forest. It was beautiful in there. I'm so grateful that we could travel through the forest by car since my knees and right ankle complain after several blocks of walking. How else would I have seen this living creature of a tree? If it's Sunday, it must be time for All Seasons , a weekly meme hosted by J...

"Here comes another oh-nay lah-nay bridge," said the Husband. We were driving on a windy road somewhere on the island of Hawaii a long time ago. "Oh-nay lah-nay?" "See, oh-nay lah-nay," the Husband said, gesturing towards the yellow sign we were passing. "Oh." That's one of the infinite reasons I'm with the Husband. A few hours ago, we drove over two, maybe three oh-nay lah-nay bridges while we meandered the country roads a few miles from home.