Four from the Trip

Here are a few images from my trip last month. Finally. I'm posting them in no particular order, a few at a time, so it will not be a strict travelogue. More like a collection of memories. Enjoy.

These photographs are all from Le Grand, California, at the home of my friend Gwen, a fellow knitting teacher:

I love all the big trees in Maryland. Really I do. One thing we are missing though is horizons. We see the sky in bits above the trees. It has its own kind of beauty. I love contrasts, however, and in California, in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, you can see for miles. So, while the eastern sky looked like this one morning: The western sky had this lovely surprise at 6:30 am: I could see the entire arc of this one-from one side of the sky to the other. It was magical. I felt like I could run over and actually find the end of it.

Gwen lives on a beautiful farm in a tiny town almost smack in the middle of California. She lives in the house her great-grandfather built. Rather than experiencing smog and traffic, I gazed out the window of an uncrowded train as it rolled from Bakersfield to Merced through blooming fields of almond trees. It was peaceful and quiet. This is the scene outside my friend's kitchen window. We all need a little of that sometimes.

Sunset over the farm. It was a blissful two days.