When I sit and gaze out at a pond and see the reflections on the still water it causes me to empty out my head of random thoughts. I am drawn into the reflections as if they were an alternate world to this one. I can’t not help but wonder if in that other world, someone is gazing back at me.
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Reflections of a Pond
We came upon this little guy at The Los Angeles Arboretum outside Glendale, California. I am not a duck expert but I never saw one before that had this blue stripe badge on its side. I thought it unusual and hope one of my followers can educate me on what type of duck this is.
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Duck
These two large cactus seem to act as a goal post for the other cactus. The setting sun provides an interesting back lighting making what was beautiful seem somewhat sinister and spooky.
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Goal Post Cactus
Palm Springs is surrounded by the San Jacinto Mountains on the western side of the city and leading up to the mountains are the world famous Indian Canyons.. There are a variety of hiking trails and while many are strenuous, less serious hikers can also find suitable trails. Palm Canyon is the most popular but we hiked the Murray Canyon Trail.
We couldn’t make it back to the waterfall because of the violent storms that preceded our hike. It was a beautiful day and the palm trees in the desert made me think of the desert oasis I was reading about in the novel,The Alchemist .
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Indian Canyons California
I remember first hearing about Palm Springs on the Edwin R. Murrow Television show Person to Person. That show was my first exposure to Murrow. I don’t know which star he was interviewing, maybe it was William Holden, but we were riveted to our ten inch black and white TV like we were every Sunday. I was amazed that they were sitting at a pool in swimwear but it was the winter in Cleveland (freezing,cold,tons of snow) and they were sitting at a pool and looking at the snow on the surrounding mountains.
What a magical place I thought.
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I learned years ago, and the hard way to not get too close to these beauties. There are a number of Cholla cactus all seemingly have needles on springs. If you get to close the needles seem to to wind up on you even if you don’t touch the plant. These opuntia type cactus is primarily found in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
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Jumping Cholla
This will be my last post now on the Art Commune at East Jesus California. In reviewing the images I found that I really liked this one and left it out of the original post. Maybe it is just my way of paying the Artists of East Jesus a thanks and adieu!
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Adeu East Jesus
Earlier this week I published an article on the artist commune in East Jesus California. It was the third in a series of our day trip through some California Weirdness. The sculpture garden at the artist commune in East Jesus is open to the public and contains literally hundreds of art installations. One of my favorites was this wall of bottles.
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Wall of Bottles
It is easy to understand the attraction of Palm Desert in California, especially in February. Last time we were there was in July. We were up early, off on a hike and in the pool before noon. After our afternoon siesta it was finally below 95 and we could venture out again to dinner or night life . It was HOT!! In the winter though the air was crisp, the days were in the low 70’s and the nights required a light jacket. Picture perfect.
Snow on the mountains and palm trees in the sun, what a beautiful place.
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Palm Desert
We left Salvation Mountain and headed down the dirt road towards East Jesus. This was ultimately the destination for our off the grid day trip from our cushy digs in the Palm Desert. We had read about an artist community in East Jesus and were eager to see their outdoor sculpture garden.
The road leading there was beyond bizarre. More rusted out trailers, twenty or so washing machines lined up in a row in the middle of the desert. We then saw a sign that said Slab City. Slab City was a collection of tents and rusted out trailers, broken down buses. One large tent had a sign that said “Martini Lounge, Live Music Nightly” another said “Furniture and Crystals for Sale”. In front of the tents people sat on lawn chairs and waved at us as we drove by. It looked like a movie set from Mad Max or A Boy and His Dog.
I thought about stopping but I had my sister and wife with me. I have another friend who attempted to go to East Jesus but turned back after seeing Slab City saying they were too scared to go on. Another musician friend went into the Martini Lounge but seeing the dark layout of couches and chairs went backed to the Salton Sea and played around a campfire for an audience of one. He said he could have played there but would have been scared to have his spouse sitting in the audience alone on one of the couches.
We came to a fork in the road. The fork was about six feet high and had a sign pointing right to East Jesus and left to West Satan. We finally arrived at the artists commune. A nice young man was there with a cute friendly dog. He gave us some information on the artist group and you can find out more about them at their website. . All in all it was a unique day trip from the Palm Desert and well worth the drive.
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East Jesus California
Imagery Photography 