Bonelli Park: Spring Gives Way...

even the cactus blooms are mostly spent by now

rising summer haze beginning to obscure the mountains on an early morning

Southern California's seasons of color never seemed to be especially lengthy; both Spring and Autumn, mere blips of time crushed between the weight of Summer and Winter. The colors that bedeck hillsides and canyon bottoms quickly give way to the advancing tan of Summer's heat. The sinuous roads of Bonelli Park, my mind remembers being constricted by the green of Spring's fresh growth but days ago, now resemble the dust-choked tracks of some old television western; I half expect to round a bend and come face to face with a collection of grubby cowpokes, all hats, bandanas and chaps. Horses hooves kicking up a beige cloud of dirt around their forelocks, like the hub-high dredge left swirling behind my wheels as we pass one another.

We can become set in our routes, just as in our ways, if we allow ourselves to become lazy or complacent. Every once in a while we need to follow a different road just to break the pattern of set routine. A sudden left, almost doubling back on a familiar, common route led to a plateau sporadically punctuated with pines. Stacks of wood marked the locations where other members of this small forest, either through blight or disease, had been cut away. Their detritus littered the dirt over which I rode. Each quarter wheel revolution raising a mantle cloaked in deep pine scent; a figment of four riders from the Ponderosa disappearing over the edge of a near hillside.

Each season is unique, each exhibits its own profound glory. Get out and experience them, get out and ride.

"pine plateau" for lack of a more creative name

the tan of summer's sun

master of all he surveys

long, low Sally

smile man, it's a good day to ride

up close to the ground

gentle curves snaking through the hills

a refreshing glimpse of the lake