Mt. Wilson on a Sunday afternoon

We drove up and up to Mt. Wilson, known for its observatory, about an hour away from our home in Los Angeles. The sky was blue, the air was thin but clear and clean, the ocean shimmered in the distance, and the downtown skyline that we all know so well looked like a small pile of Legos in a vast basin. Despite protestations about going, the boys ended up enjoying themselves, and I felt grateful, again, to live in this amazing state.

These were some attempts at a Christmas card, none of which I'll use. In fact, I think I'm not going to send Christmas cards this year, for the first time in nearly twenty years.

The sun was shining so brilliantly, and I couldn't really see what I was photographing (not to mention, I was using my camera phone!), but this shot was of the Los Angeles basin, the small city in the middle and the ocean glimmering behind it. Very cool to see --

 You could smell the pine and juniper up there -- pungent and redolent of Christmas.

Many of the trees are burnt to cinders, remnants of the fires that ravaged the area a couple of years ago.

That yellow, sparkly stuff is the Pacific ocean!

The thin, dry air made Henry's and my hair absurdly flat, and we got a good laugh at the flip on Henry's.

We indulged in Frito Pie, hotdogs and hummus at the cafe and tried to keep warm in the frigid 50 degree air. We're weather wimps.

Even Oliver declared that there was no room for Sunday blues, today.