Dried and Cracked

The sound of a siren seemed to rise out of the ground, emerging from a jigsaw puzzle of cracks as I rode over them. Then again, perhaps the sound came from the patchwork of clouds, gaps of blue showing like the darker gaps in the hard packed soil. It was the same breeze that had dried the ground, and it was refreshing after the climb up canyon. The sun was the same sun that had baked the ground causing those cracks, but today it felt good on my back, warm, not yet oppressive. 

Across the gap of the canyon I watched two people moving in opposite directions, at different speeds; one with that slow, uphill plodding gait, the other freewheeling down, speed measured with strategic breaking, but still fast. It may not be Spring yet, but the contrasts of that transitory season are starting to be seen all around.

i couldn't figure out what these clusters of white flowers were until i got close - California Cucumber vines spreading along the ground (you might also notice the dried husks of a couple - by the seatpost - from last year

leaflets three, let it be - those a two really big masses of poison oak

the green, green hills of Claremont