Bodymovin'; Flora; Topography
I mapped out a jogging route that had me skirting the City College and running down to the Huntington Botanical Gardens, but what looked on the Google map like a route right into the trails through the gardens proved to be a gated private road. The gardens are surrounded by a wall of iron, brick, and high greenery that hints at what lies within. Apparently the Huntington is ringed with the demesnes of those rich enough to be shielded from public view, with pretty yet imposing barriers to keep out anybody who did not, personally, executive-produce Ordinary People and donate a building to UCLA.
So I took the alternate route of the Gawking Tour of Enormous Residences on Avondale Road. There are some reeeeally rich people in San Marino.
It's pleasant going by the "rich enough to live here, not rich enough to have a pull-through driveway" houses on Sierra Bonita, though. I'm almost inured to roses at this point - roses in Pasadena, huh? Imagine that. - but to my delight, several homes had bottlebrush trees, just coming into vivid red bloom. I love bottlebrushes: there is one in my parents' backyard, and growing up I never got tired of closing my small hand around them, feeling how soft they were, my palm coming away yellow with pollen.
Wikipedia says bottlebrushes are from Australia. There are several plants and trees in California that are so prevalent here that I never questioned that they were either a) from anywhere else or b) not found everywhere. Birds of paradise and eucalyptus trees are the other examples. I remember the first time thewronghands went to Australia, she'd never seen either of those before, and I was surprised - what do you mean, you never saw a bird of paradise before? They're just standard ground cover in California!
What seems unique to SoCal, vs. NorCal, so far are jacarandas, which I haven't seen elsewhere and first learned about through the Weetzie Bat books (set in - and glorifying - L.A.), and this other flowering tree with these really bright yellow flowers on it, whose name I don't know. So the whole town is soft purple and bright yellow, and of course roses everywhere. (And let me not neglect to mention California golden poppies, which line the 5 approaching and going through the Grapevine. My home!)
I do like it here. It's been only a week. As jholomorphic said the other night when we went out for Chinese food in Alhambra, I'm really not in SoCal long enough to bother disliking the bad parts. Of which there are plenty. Instead I've been wandering around just filling up my eyeballs and loving everything.
Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, exercise. So I jogged 4 miles, stopping only for red lights and walking only for the one uphill part of the route, the Avondale loop. Other than that, Pasadena is mercifully flat; the San Gabriel Mountains just kinda go straight up, so I guess they used up all the not-flat for this area.
Also, there is a YMCA about 4 miles away, so today or tomorrow I'll go sign up there, and then I can have a gym to go to after work and on weekends. My jogging loop is nice enough that I should definitely keep that up on the weekends, though.
6 hours until Cohen!
So I took the alternate route of the Gawking Tour of Enormous Residences on Avondale Road. There are some reeeeally rich people in San Marino.
It's pleasant going by the "rich enough to live here, not rich enough to have a pull-through driveway" houses on Sierra Bonita, though. I'm almost inured to roses at this point - roses in Pasadena, huh? Imagine that. - but to my delight, several homes had bottlebrush trees, just coming into vivid red bloom. I love bottlebrushes: there is one in my parents' backyard, and growing up I never got tired of closing my small hand around them, feeling how soft they were, my palm coming away yellow with pollen.
Wikipedia says bottlebrushes are from Australia. There are several plants and trees in California that are so prevalent here that I never questioned that they were either a) from anywhere else or b) not found everywhere. Birds of paradise and eucalyptus trees are the other examples. I remember the first time thewronghands went to Australia, she'd never seen either of those before, and I was surprised - what do you mean, you never saw a bird of paradise before? They're just standard ground cover in California!
What seems unique to SoCal, vs. NorCal, so far are jacarandas, which I haven't seen elsewhere and first learned about through the Weetzie Bat books (set in - and glorifying - L.A.), and this other flowering tree with these really bright yellow flowers on it, whose name I don't know. So the whole town is soft purple and bright yellow, and of course roses everywhere. (And let me not neglect to mention California golden poppies, which line the 5 approaching and going through the Grapevine. My home!)
I do like it here. It's been only a week. As jholomorphic said the other night when we went out for Chinese food in Alhambra, I'm really not in SoCal long enough to bother disliking the bad parts. Of which there are plenty. Instead I've been wandering around just filling up my eyeballs and loving everything.
Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, exercise. So I jogged 4 miles, stopping only for red lights and walking only for the one uphill part of the route, the Avondale loop. Other than that, Pasadena is mercifully flat; the San Gabriel Mountains just kinda go straight up, so I guess they used up all the not-flat for this area.
Also, there is a YMCA about 4 miles away, so today or tomorrow I'll go sign up there, and then I can have a gym to go to after work and on weekends. My jogging loop is nice enough that I should definitely keep that up on the weekends, though.
6 hours until Cohen!