Greencaviar Travel

The sign, “Serious Drought Help Save Water” displayed on the electronic highway board, opened up an interesting conversation about the California drought. We were heading to Half Moon Bay for an outing at the beach and hiking the coastal trail. The drought continued to be the topic of conversation as we passed the I-280 and Highway 92 interchange where a portion of Highway 92 bisects the Crystal Springs Reservoir. The effect of the drought is nowhere more evident than the reservoir low water level. We reached Half Moon Bay just as the fog lifted. We first walked the Coastside Trail that ran along the beaches and the ocean bluff. The stretch of coastal trail provided a stunning landscape of jagged promontory, cliffs, windswept trees, dramatic dunes, and ocean views that I found more intoxicating than the famous Half Moon Bay microbrew. However, the effect of the California drought on insects and birds was evident while we walked the trail. I did not see any butterflies or as many ...

Everything on the earth bristled, the bramble pricked and the green thread nibbled away, the petal fell, falling until the only flower was the falling itself. Water is another matter, has no direction but its own bright grace, runs through all imaginable colors, takes limpid lessons from stone, and in those functionings plays out the unrealized ambitions of the foam. Water By Pablo Neruda PHOTO GALLERY: Note:  All photos by Alice O

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips: maybe it was the voice of the rain crying, a cracked bell, or a torn heart. Something from far off it seemed deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth, a shout muffled by huge autumns, by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves. Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood-- and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.                                         Lost in the Forest                 ...