Montrose Walk

Just another walk through Montrose neighbourhood...

A collection of 1940s Saltorini outdoor furniture

Lovely Orange Trees

Much smaller, but in their quantity beautiful too, fields of citrus trees were covering the area around Orange Cove in Fresno County. We've had a perfect timing in experiencing the trees in their bloom, with an air full of beguiling orange blossom scent. 

In the Land of Giants

We felt like dwarfs while walking around in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. The Congress trail led us through an assembly of stunning giant sequoia tree formations. For a short time it was the place of Kaweah Colony,  a glimmering socialist utopia, where General Sherman Tree was known as Karl Marx Tree.

General Sherman Tree

Where the Water goes

In the Romero Visitor Center we’ve learned about the use of water and the San Louis Reservoir, which is one of the nation's largest offstream reservoirs, meaning it has no watershed. Instead the reservoir stores water diverted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for later deliveries to the Silicon Valley, San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast, and Southern California.

The Beauty of the Planktonkreisel

We could discover even more Kelp Forest in the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where California Giant Kelp was grown live for the first time in the world. In this amazing tank you can explore life down in a Kelp Forest and once a day a diver is feeding the fish while talking to the audience outside the tank.
Further we were fascinated by the beauty and variety of Jellyfish - The Jellies Experience.
“The Monterey Bay Aquarium has been the first in the world to exhibit jellyfish, which were traditionally impossible to cultivate. Marine biologist and ecologist Dr. Wulf Greve had come up with the concept of the "Planktonkreisel" for his own research on Pleurobrachia Pileus in 1968 at the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland. Building on this work, the Monterey Bay Aquarium was the first to ever add jellyfish to their exhibit in the early 90s.”

Kelp Forest Tank

Leopard Shark

Northern Anchovy

Purple-striped jelly

Purple-striped jelly

Sea nettle

Egg-yolk jelly

From Redwoods to Kelp forests

Big Sur, the place of solitude, where Jack Kerouac tried to find back into his creativity, renew his spirit from madness and alcohol, with his alter ego Duluoz: “He seeks respite first in solitude in the Big Sur cabin…"   
“In the early to mid-20th century, Big Sur’s relative isolation and natural beauty began to attract writers and artists…”
Instead of Kerouac’s fascination for Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur, I was visual captured by the hypnotic movement of kelp forest.

Balancing on Redwoods

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

McWay Falls