Greetings from Home

We are back on the east coast, which is chilly and apparently even got some snow earlier, but the daffodils, forsythia, magnolias, and flowering trees all make this first day of spring quite lovely anyway. We had to get up before 5 a.m. to fly out of L.A.X. -- Daniel taking off an hour after we left for Dulles to fly to Sea-Tac -- and, once we had landed after a very uneventful flight during which we mostly tried to catch up on sleep, we had to drive Adam around the Beltway to College Park since his classes resume on Monday morning.

It's all good, though; the cats seemed happy to see us even though our sitter had clearly been filling their food bowls more than we do, we went to California Tortilla for dinner before taking Adam to his dorm, where his roommates met us to help carry his things upstairs, and though we missed seeing most of the game while we were schlepping around, the Terps beat Hawaii to advance in the NCAA tournament. Here are some photos from Vasquez Rocks in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, featured in many films and TV shows:


The dot at ten o'clock from the couple is Adam climbing up the stones.


A curious lizard in the sun.


Vasquez Rocks from the visitor center...


...and from the lower parking lot from which many people begin their climbs.


Within the visitor center, posters from movies filmed at Vasquez Rocks...


...and a rattlesnake found in the region. There were warning signs about rattlesnakes in many of the parks we visited, but this was the only actual rattlesnake we saw.


Here, however, is a non-poisonous snake that Adam found while climbing on the rocks (the rest of us were too slow to see it).


In fact most of us preferred to take breaks in the shade.


We could all manage the stones near the visitor center, at least.