Beautiful stairs among the hot spring ruins in Alum Rock Park:
Other than the ruins, my favorite part of Alum Rock was the creek, because unlike 95% of the creeks I’ve come across in California, it wasn’t dried up! It wasn’t exactly RAGING, either, mind you, but there was actually SOME flowing water. Not exactly flowing like a Virginia creek, but I’ll take what I can get. THIS reminded me very much of one of the creeks in Prince William National Forest – I have very similar photos of a rusty pedestrian bridge taken while I was standing in the creek.
LOOK AT THIS GREEN! Did you know that I didn’t actually believe California would turn green in the winter?? I moved here when the drought was at its height, for one thing, and for another, it was summer and I’m used to four seasons: spring showers and thunderstormy summers blanketing everything in thick, lush, green grass and trees, followed by spectacular fall colors, leaves falling, and stark, barren, dark, brown, snowy, (awful) winters. The climate works differently here though, with the summer being the dry season and the winter being the wet season, so here it’s brown all summer – even when there’s not a drought, I believe – and then it comes alive in the winter. When I first got here I feared I would never see anything like this again:
This picture is a segue from what I considered the “Virginia” portion of my hike in Alum Rock Park to the “California” portion. California up next!
So not only did you leave behind the cold and the snow that we get at this time of the year, but this is actually when you get greenery… Well, next thing you know, winter will have turned into your favorite season! 😉
The stairs are indeed truly beautiful. Thank you for sharing those pictures. I’m enjoying our white landscape at the moment (it’s so much better than all the grey we’ve had so far this winter!), but a touch of bright green is always a wonderful sight, too.