Spring means home and garden tours

Balmy spring is here - hopefully it won't morph into summer too soon.  All the gardens are bursting with flowers and greenery; the roses are especially beautiful.

April is the start of home and garden tour season.  The last Sunday of April holds two annual tours in Pasadena - the Bungalow Heaven Historical District's home tour and the Garden Conservancy's Pasadena Open Day garden tour.  Luckily, I'm very organized and I'm able to do both in one day! Home tour in the morning, garden tour in the afternoon.

The home tour is a walking tour - all the open homes are within walking distance of each other.  I like to see how home owners are able to renovate and restore their charming cottages and bungalows.  The garden tour requires driving between sites.  Since these homes' goal is not necessarily restoration, they tend to be geared more for luxury and easy outdoor living - and they're usually pretty amazing!

Here are some photos from both tours - flowers and details, houses and people.  Enjoy.

Hiking the Mt Wilson Toll Road

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, I decided to take a drive up on Angeles Crest Highway (Route 2) through the San Gabriel Mountains and ended up at Mt Wilson.  The mountain is famous for its observatory and telescopes (this is not the iconic Griffith Park Observatory that you can see from metro LA).  The drive was a lot of fun - although there are always a lot of cars and motorcycles on a sunny Sunday, I was lucky to cruise along in a pocket of open road, which is a lot better than wedged between tailgaters and nervous minivans :)

I took a hike on part of the Mt Wilson Toll Road.  This fire road goes down from Mt Wilson to Altadena - the total length is 9 miles, but I only hiked down for an hour (and then back up!).  It was very green and lush, and the ceanothus and manzanita were still blooming along the trail (they finished blooming a month ago at my house).

I haven't hiked much this past year - I only have Sundays free and they tend to fill up pretty quickly with other activities.  I'll have to schedule more outdoor days in the future.

LA basin from the trail.

Ceanothus (California lilac).

Yucca.

More ceanothus.

Trail with ceanothus hedge.

Ceanothus buds.

Pointing the way.

Indian pink.

Solar telescopes.

Twisted branches.

More blooms.

A lot of these little guys running across the trail.

Mahonia.

Tiny flowers.

End of the trail - back at Skyline Park.

Hike's reward:  Moroccan vegetarian stew and bulgar salad in a spinach wrap. Yum!

Passover in Montreal 2013

Once again I went to Montreal for Passover.  Most of my sister's children were home for at least part of the holiday.  It's fun being their cool aunt :)

The weather was pretty cold for this SoCal gal, but there were a few days in the middle that were sunny and a little warmer  - maybe in the 50's (F)!  Since most of the days I was there were either holidays, Sabbath or the prep days before them, we didn't go out and about much, but I still managed to take a few photos.

Here are a selection: mostly portraits, but a few scenics thrown in for good measure.  Enjoy!

On the waterfront.

Nossun

Kaila and Yosef

Mushka

Estie

Estie and Mushkie

On the town.

Kaila and Mushkie

Old in the new.

Reflections.

Little bit of nature.

Seeing things from a new angle.

Field of flowers.

Illusions.