Tag Archives: California

Historic Submerged Dam

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A very easy, shaded trail at Santiago Oaks Regional Park, Orange, California, leads to a historic dam.

In August 1879, local landowners sought to improve the agricultural productivity of their lands. A clay dam was submerged to the bedrock floor of Santiago Creek to force more groundwater to the surface. When that early dam was destroyed by flooding a few years later, it was replaced in 1892 with one made of river rock and cement, which still stands within the present park.

Submerged Historic Dam

Historic Dam History

Historic Dam Sign

Santiago Oaks Trail

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Wildlife abounds, and a series of interconnected trails at Santiago Oaks Regional Park leads through shady groves to a lookout offering an awe-inspiring view of Orange and the surrounding foothills.

Here is a view from Santiago Oaks Trails of homes on the hills.

View from Santiago Oaks Trail

Homes on the Mountains

Santiago Oaks Regional Park

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Lying peacefully in East Orange, California, alongside the Santiago Creek, the 1,269-acre Santiago Oaks Regional Park is a nature lover’s paradise. This secluded refuge offers hikers, bikers, and equestrians the natural charm of mountain vistas, an orange grove, a meandering creek, and a mature forest with many different tree species.

Hiking Trail

Horse Trails

Horse Trail

 

Yorba Linda Regional Park

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We visited California in April this year and will be posting images from there.

Yorba Regional Park in Anaheim is a forested paradise with fishing lakes. Feels like Yorba Linda, but actually in Anaheim. This thin, linear park is just over a mile long but offers casual biking opportunities, a riverside equestrian trail, beautiful water features, and amenities galore.

Pond at Yorba Linda Regional Park

Foggy Day at Baker Beach

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After photographing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, from various locations, we ventured to Baker Beach on a foggy evening.

Baker Beach, located in San Francisco’s Presidio, is a scenic, mile-long beach famous for its stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge. While it’s a popular spot for photography, the foggy weather makes it challenging.

Foggy Day at Baker Beach

Monochrome Images

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Switching our posts for the next two weeks from color to monochrome.

Monochrome photography is an artistic type of photography that uses tones of a single color to colorize a photograph. Instead of having colors from all over the spectrum, a monochrome photo has just one color scale. All black and white images are monochrome images, but not all monochrome images are black and white. 

Here is an image captured from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in California, that is converted from color to monochrome making it balanced and visually appealing.

Cloud Formations over Yosemite in Monochrome

Cloud Formations from Glacier Point Yosemite

Leaning Towards Water

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Tall palms lean right toward the ocean in Santa Monica, California. Why do palm trees lean towards the sea? Palm trees lean to get more light called “phototropism.” The ocean acts as a mirror for light, so there is much more light coming from the sea than from a single building.

Leaning Towards Water

Japanese Tea Garden – San Francisco

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The Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco, California, is a popular feature of Golden Gate Park. Originally created as a “Japanese Village” exhibit for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, the site originally spanned about one acre and showcased a Japanese style garden.  When the fair closed, Japanese landscape architect Makoto Hagiwara and superintendent John McLaren reached a gentleman’s agreement, allowing Mr. Hagiwara to create and maintain a permanent Japanese style garden as a gift for posterity.  

Entering Japanese Tea Garden

Alcatraz from Pacific Heights

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Alcatraz Island is a small island in San Francisco Bay, 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco, California. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison. Here are views of Alcatraz from Pacific Heights.

Alcatraz from Pacific Heights
Alcatraz

Flowers – Yellow Plumeria

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A plumeria’s deep-green, long, leathery leaves grow in dense clumps at the tips of its branches. From early summer through fall, clusters of five-petaled flowers bloom amid the leaves. Large and aromatic, flowers can be white, cream, yellow, pink, lilac, or red. In Asia, plumeria flowers adorn Buddhist and Hindu temples. Captured these in Cerritos, California.

Yellow Plumeria

Flowers – Veins of a Balloon Flower

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Fairy Snow White Balloon Flower is an interesting clump forming perennial so named because the buds puff up like balloons before they open. This compact Platycodon produces white bell-shaped blossoms with delicately contrasting blue veins in mid through late summer.  Captured in Santa Monica, California.

Veins of a Flower