Asilomar Environs (39)

Another day, another Adventure Lab (see yesterday's post). Fortunately, with this one we've tackled almost all the local ALs, so I'm going to have to get back to "honest" posts. But for today, a few more photos from an afternoon walk.

Curiously (given its title), this AL did not take us to the famed conference center of Asilomar, designed by architect Julia Morgan

but to various spots nearby. (Hmmm, that gives me an idea for making an Adventure Lab of my own.)  (By the way, I did not take the above photos. But isn't it a beautiful place?)

Those various nearby spots—five altogether—included the place where a wooden passenger shelter used to stand on a train spur that once served a sand quarry in what is now Pebble Beach, and today is a woodsy walking corridor; the Butterfly Sanctuary (which I wrote about a few weeks ago); the Point Pinos Light Station, first lit in February 1855 and today the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast (even the Fresnel lens is original); the memorial plaque for singer/activist/humanitarian John Denver, who died in Monterey Bay in 1997 at age 53 when his experimental plane, the Long EZ N555JD, crashed; and the now empty former NOAA/US Fisheries building, decorated with murals by artist and punster Ray Troll. Here are photos I took of the latter two stops.

On our walk to the NOAA building, we passed by an artist working on a lovely arboreal landscape. We stopped to chat with him. He name was Bernard, and he said he'd put in a couple of hours on this piece a few days ago, but he wasn't sure it was finished, so he came back out at 2 this afternoon. We happened on him at about 4, when the light had pretty much left the trees he was painting. He'd been watching it change, trying to capture that magic. As he spoke to us, he dabbed a bit more gray in the branches of a sunlit patch on the left. I asked how long it usually took him to paint a piece, and he sort of shrugged, said it didn't really matter: it's just a wonderful way to pass the time. I'd have to agree, and it makes me wish I were a painter....

For this walk, we wrapped up Milo's foot, since he's been licking it obsessively (we can't figure out why) and we're trying to give it a break. Here are him and his foot. The fishy motif on the sock seemed appropriate. He was a trooper!

Another fine outing in this beautiful place we call home. (And now, to start researching a new Adventure Lab that actually includes Asilomar itself—and the boardwalk, where I just happen to have a couple of geocaches stashed.)