Black and White - group 1

As a change of pace, I thought I'd start sharing some of my B&W photos. These are from "The World in Black and White" website. A few of them have been posted here before. Some are old, some are new, and some are middle aged. Counting me, there are currently 13 people who contribute to the site. No narratives to read. A title, a photo and a name. That is it. Of course, comments and generous gratuities (20% please!) are always appreciated...

 Port San Luis

Sequoia National Park (in May)
My wife was prepared for all potential emergencies... She had an umbrella! 

 Oceano Dunes

Little Miss Attitude (she was the one daring lightning to hit here a couple of posts ago) 

Pismo Beach

Spooner's Cove - California Central Coast

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time on the central California coast. One day we were looking for a place called Los Osos Oaks (The Bears Oaks) to do some hiking. As sometimes happens, the trail-head wasn't where our GPS said it was supposed to be. So we kept driving.

Instead of what we were looking for, we saw this. We both love the ocean, so we quickly forgot about our hike through the forest.

This photo was taken in front of the white building in the left side of the above photo.  Apparently, we had entered Montana de Oro (Mountain of Gold) State Park without knowing it. I'd heard of the place, but knew nothing about it. Anyway, this old wooden building (now a little museum) was once the ranch house for the 7,000 acre Spooner Ranch. This photo also shows the north side of Spooner's Cove. There is a lot of other history associated with this place, but I think this is enough for now.

Here is the southern side of Spooner's Cove.

This is the right side of the cove again. A lady working in the ranch house told me that there was a major archaeology dig on top of the hill. I saw a trail going up that way and knew we'd be checking it out. The lady then said that there was nothing left up there. Too bad! We settled for sniffing out some sea glass on the beach.

A nice little natural arch.

I'm sure that dog was supposed to be on a leash, or maybe not there at all. Still, it made for a nice photo.

You can see the ranch house on the very left hand side of the photo. That sharp point jutting out into the cove (on the left), is the end of the south side of Spooner's Cove (from the third photo).  The ranch (and now the park) has over six miles of ocean front. Most of it consisting of beautiful and rugged coves.

The scene in the last photo, was directly behind me.  This is the foundation of a storage building that was used to store crops, lumber and sheep products over a hundred years ago.

before being dropped in this gravity chute, which ended at a freight loading area for...

The ships that would dock at the edge of this rocky outcropping.

I was only being stupid here to show you how steep and far down it was to the ships. The actual trail is about 10 yards behind me.

A photo of the cove from way back in the day.

I'll shut up for a while now.

We found a way down into this one.

Each of these layers was the sea floor at some time in the distant past.

For those who have heard of it, that is Morro Rock in the distance (in front of the mountains)

This part of the trail is roped off, but that doesn't stop some people! Like my wife...

If you are ever in this area, I strongly advise you to come and see this place. There are also many great hiking trails in the area.




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Spiral Staircase to Nowhere - California Central Coast

Just another oddity! Only this time, it's not in the desert!

Embiggen the photos as you please...

I heard that there was something odd sitting next to this cliff side restaurant. So off we went! Do you see anything?

At first, I didn't either. Wait, what is that thing next to the cliff?  No Silly! I'm not talking about the arrow, but what the arrow is pointing at. To get a better view we walked to the cliff on the other side of the restaurant.

What the heck? It looks like a spiral staircase. When I took the first photo, we were standing by the middle palm tree on that cliff over yonder.

It is indeed a spiral staircase.

Okay, I'll tell you. Many years ago there was no method to get down to the beach here, so they built this staircase. At the top (fifth floor) there was a bridge like ramp that went over to the cliff.  Pretty easy access. Some time (also many years ago) it was decided that moisture and salt air had deteriorated the structure to the point of it being unsafe. They removed the bridge portion, but for some reason (probably for me), they left the rest of it sitting there.

While I was standing here taking photos through a fence, a lady walked up with her camera. She told me that she lived very close to this thing her entire life and not only had she never seen it, she had never even heard of it. I spoke to other people about it and the result was pretty much the same. Even the guy at the local tourist bureau knew nothing about it. I'll shut up now and let you look at the photos.

I took the rest of the photos from the balcony of the restaurant. I got there via the employee entrance, but instead of entering the kitchen, I went to the balcony. One guy did come out of a side door and we stared at each other for a short time. Then he went back inside without saying a word.

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In Addition:

My friend, the lovely and talented Alex J. Cavanaugh, has just released his latest Science Fiction thriller...

A Storm gathers across the galaxy...

Commanding the Cassan base on Tgren, Byron thought he'd put the days of battle behind him.  As a galaxy-wide war encroaches upon the desert planet, Byron's ideal life is threatened and he's caught between the Tgrens and the Cassans.

After enemy ships attack the desert planet, Byron discovers another battle within his own family.  the declaration of war between all ten races triggers nightmares in his son, threatening to destroy the boy's mind.

Meanwhile the ancient alien ship is transmitting a code that might signal the end of all life in the galaxy. And the mysterious probe that almost destroyed Tgren twenty years ago could return.  As his world beings to crumble, Byron suspects a connection. The storm is about to break, and Byron is caught in the middle...

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CassaStorm by Alex J. Cavanaugh

Science Fiction - Space Opera/Adventure

Print ISBN 9781939844002

E-book ISBN 9781939844019

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You can find CassaStorm and the other books in this series at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Amazon Kindle and Goodreads.

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Also available:

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Central Coast - Oceano

The posts relating to our last two road trips are starting to back up on me.  Because the scenery and things we did on each trip was so different, I decided that I'm going to alternate posts from each one.  We parked our RV outside of the little town of Oceano. There is nothing noteworthy about the town, except for the awesome area it's in.

The view from our spot. The ocean is just the other side of those sand dunes. We decided to take a stroll to the beach and take in the sunset.

Just pick a spot and lay out your towel and umbrella

Is this a beach, or the Sahara Desert?

The French Foreign Legion blazing a trail to the next oasis.

It just goes on FOREVER...

This dune was at least 10 stories tall. If my wife was to fall,  she would probably be hurt. Please note that she has her priorities in order; her wine cooler is much more important that her safety. You can see how high this dune is by taking a look at our shadows and the people in the background.

Finally we got our payoff for all the hard work.

The beach was pretty awesome. Totally undeveloped.

Off in the left distance, you can see some vehicles and RV's. This beach is the only place on the west coast of the U.S. that you can drive on.

You think it was hard hiking to the beach?  We had to hike back after sunset. My new favorite APP on my phone is a compass...

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