Our journey so far, from a "flora" point of view

We have been on the road for nearly a month, and have traveled through a wide array of scenery.

One thing that has struck me is the many changes in trees.

We started among the deep old woods of the Olympic Peninsula, traveled down the coast of Washington and Oregon, seeing many pines weathered and shaped by ocean winds, then through the redwoods of northern California in all their still and mossy majesty....it seemed we just went around a bend and suddenly were in what we call chaparral country, with fir and madrone among the oaks. We turned just slightly East and suddenly we were among cypress, palms and agave. As we headed south, down the middle of California, we were soon passing orange and lemon groves and colorful Eucalyptus. Now, we're in the country of cactus and yucca, all spiny and wild. It is so strange to go from the thickly wooded hills of the Pacific coast to this land where the hills are bare, covered only in sparse grass with rarely even a brushy draw.

We are in the desert country of southern California now.

This is big country! It is a land of sudden, sharp hills and snow-dusted mountains, with seemingly endless flat plains at their feet, and a high, blue sky that dwarfs even this massive landscape. I am perpetually fascinated by being able to see the "bones" of the land; all it knobs and wrinkles, with outcrops of rock shoving through the thin, dry soil. I love to ponder and muse over the forces that shaped this rugged land.