Sunrise Highway

The Sunrise Highway is the place thousands of San Diego's people head for when there is snow in the mountains. It snowed on Tuesday and Wednesday and some on Thursday too. We drove up hoping to see snow in Pine Valley but the snow was gone. It must have rained over night. So we drove up to the Sunrise Highway. There was snow along to road and on the hills. Lots of cars parked along the roads where parking is allowed and people with small children playing in the snow. We stopped at a lodge and had lunch. The lunch choices were skimpy. Grilled cheese and hamburgers. The price was high. Oh well!

We were going to head back to Pine Valley but Jackie mentioned pie so we drove toward Julian. The Julian Pie Company has some wonderful pies.

Years ago the Sunrise Highway had a section of road cut into the side of Mount Laguna that over looked the desert down below. Thirty years or more ago that streatch of road was deemed unsafe for auto traffic and the road was by passed and closed. I miss being able to travel that section of road. This is a view that shows the closed road and some of the desert view.

It looks narrow and like cars couldn't travel over it but once-upon a time we did. Then I took a photo of the view toward the desert. I think the snow covered mountains are the San Jacinto Mountains.

We took a side trip to Cuyamaca Lake and then headed back toward Julian.

Cuyamaca Lake is man made. When we lived in Ramona in the 1970s we often took our children fishing there. Lots of fun.

Julian was crowded for a Friday. Probably lots of people looking for snow. Last year we found snow in Julian and I got some nice photos. We drove down to Santa Ysabel to buy the pies and then headed home.

Snow in Mountains...Hoping to get up there...

It is mostly cloudy today and supposed to rain again tonight.  It is cold too. And this storm is supposed to bring more snow to the mountains. I so want to get up there with my camera. Hailey said that there was lots of students missing from her classes. I think that they all headed up to the snow. I can remember back when I was in high school and snow in the mountains meant that we had half empty classrooms.

Whitney

I posted this on facebook...

The only think I can think about this is how sad it all is. Whitney was one of my daughter's favorite singers. Whitney had so much talent. She let drugs bring her down.

I have a son that did drugs and no matter how many chances he had, he couldn't stay off drugs. His first sentence was probation and he had to pass drug tests. He failed the tests and they put him in a rehab. He failed again and finally they sent him to prison. He got out on parole several times and continued to fail drug tests and back into prison. Finally he finished his prison time and was out and not on parole. He couldn't stay off drugs. Meth is his drug and meth causes user's teeth to fall out. He had not lost any teeth up to this last time out and then I heard that he has lost some teeth. He started borrowing friends cars and ran into a neighbors fence and made that into a hit and run. His friend turned him in for stealing their cars. He couldn't work and wrote some bad checks. He is back in prison. There are people that have done really bad crimes and have done less time than my son. It may not be fair but while he is inside he is off drugs. I always pray that God will keep my children safe. Maybe all that prison time is keeping my son safe.

I wish someone or something could have kept Whitney safe.

Visitor

A few years ago we saw an egret at the Wild Animal Park. Some of the people there thought that the egret was a resident of the park. Not! They come and go as they please and we have a couple of them that visit our yard once in awhile. Today was visiting day.

More Pastels

Just because I didn't make it to my class doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I've been working with my new pastels. I realized that they needed to be organized somewhat so that I would know what was where. It isn't easy sorting out so many colors. I really like these colors too but they are are a work in progress for the maker and while colors in different color groups are numbered the groups cannot be sorted by these numbers...if I want the blues, or reds, etc. to be together. I could just dump them together by color but I don't know these pastels that well, and I like using the same red or orange when I go back to working on a pastel painting. And I want to know where to find it. I can still see color shade differences but am not as good at it as I used to be. I read that when we get older the lens of our eyes yellows some and that changes how we see color.

My Mama was really good at seeing color. My Dad was partially color blind. I've always felt that I could tell colors and color differences but then if I couldn't...how would I know. Anyway I sorted the pastels and that took me awhile...trying not to be obsessive compulsive about all this too...

And I will post some work soon...I promise.

Pastels

Getting old means too much stuff. I couldn't think of anything I really wanted for Christmas...other than winning the lotto...yeah right! Anyway I saw an ad for Mount Vision pastels at a wonderful sales price. Less than half of list and and lots less than most discount offers. So asked my husband for the amount to get them. I was so excited when they got here. I love mail order...but it also means waiting for stuff. When I took them out of the boxes to look at them...all 350 of them...I spread them still in their foam packing accross my desk. I wanted to look at them and get familiar with the colors. Mount Vision is a soft pastel and the sticks are a little larger than most pastels. I bought them on faith. I've found that I like the softer pastels to work with.

Last year I bought a set of Sennelier Soft Pastels half sticks. The set was on sale but still expensive. They are really nice to work. I've been taking these to my pastel classes. No way could I get a full set. I did buy a few open stock Sennelier pastels and found one was pretty much crushed to powder and two sticks were gritty. Then I bought a set of Rembrant pastels. These are a little harder than I like to use but a very nice set.

My new Mount Vision pastels remained on my desk for several days. One day I came into the room and my big black cat was curled up asleep right on top of the pastels. Urf! Good thing the foam protected them from the 20 pound cat! So I decided to buy some pastel storage boxes for them. This is a good time for getting stuff on sale. they were sixty percent off reg price. Now my new pastels are safe ready for me to start messing them up.

The Last of Autumn

Hailey and Jackie and I spent some time at Summer's Past yesterday. We had warm drinks...Hailey's was hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. The sun was iffy...and it was a little cold. I took a few photos anyway.

Then we went to a great pizza place and had a lovely lunch.

Winter Roses

Sunset

Taken the same day as the sunrise photos. I don't have a good view of sunsets here but could see the pink orange sky.

Red Sunrise

We had a lovely sunrise this morning. I saw the red glow through the window it was reflected on the wall and the room was filled with red light. I went to get camera and couldn't remember where I put it down. Found it and then had to put in a card. Usually my camera always has a card. The card I grabbed was full so had to erase the old photos....this all took time and the view of the sunrise did fade a bit. Still I got a couple of photos. The view in the top photo once had a tree that I photographed many times and then one day I noticed it was gone. I miss the tree...