An After T-Day Serving of Potatoes

apparently I haven't taken enough self-portraits lately (not really my thing) - i'll make up for it this post

Three weeks or so, the road bike hangs from its spoked front wheel. Three weeks during which the mountain bike, the cx bike pound the meagre miles on dirt and, inevitably, some pavement. The Cogswell Dam ride would have been nice this morning, but for the road bike hanging by a hook for three weeks. So, and instead, the ride up Potato Mountain filled in, a few hours in the saddle and out. It is nice up there this time of year - cool, maybe even cold, dramatic clouds racing across the sky, or floating lazy like, clear skies with views south across the valley, or north up canyon to the Old Bald One - snow-flecked, snow-cloaked, maybe even snowed-upon in the moment.

Potato Mountain - there is but one way to get there, and so I climb that road, the one that winds in and out of the upper reaches of numerous canyons - Little Palmer, big Palmer, others unnamed and, largely, indistinct but for the sensation of moving in toward, enclosed by, the mountain (Sunset) and back out again. Whether in or out, it looks like early winter up here- damp earth, rich in color after the passing rain, yellow leaves bright against the contrasting dark, ever-green of Oaks; further along toyons' red berries, always a sure marker of the season and, inevitably, the cloud-shrouded pate of Baldy, brief glimpses of snow, whitened flanks.

The group ride would have been nice today, but truth be known, I think I wanted this solo one instead, the quiet, the solitude, the introspection.

a pause at Coyote Howl Point, headed over that way

I can hear that Javier dude now, "stopping again?"

Santa Ana mountains across the valley

the Castor Bean plants are going to be a problem along parts of the route (hear that City of Claremont) I pulled a few decent sized ones out by hand, and a bunch of smaller ones, but there are many more that need shovel work - simply cutting them down, which is what appears to have been done in the past, just does not do the job, they grow back.

Baldy in the clouds

pockets of autumn yellow