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Magnificent Golden Gate view from Sausalito - this is from Cavallo Point Resort, housed in the renovated army barracks of Fort Baker, part of coastal fortification installations built up and down the Pacific Coast between 1902-1912. .
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Van Gogh, 1886 - Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase
We drove into San Francisco and had a wonderful afternoon at the De Young Museum seeing the Post-Impressionist exhibit of Musée D’Orsay paintings, including this magnificent Van Gogh still life.
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On one of those January days of warm sun, my husband and I drove north up the I-5, losing the comfortable weather as the miles whizzed by. It’s only a trip that can be made in winter: to see migratory birds stopping over in the California wetlands as they move North to their summer places. Over 44% of the Pacific Flyway’s bird population overwinters in the Sacramento and Central Valleys.
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These wetlands are fascinating conservation-dream hybrids, operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Only about 10% of the original wetlands remain after the region’s water supply was dammed and controlled for crop irrigation. To resolve the conflict between rice-growing farmers and hungry migrating birds, the dry fields are flooded in the fall and winter using a network of dykes, dams, and pumps. Over 35,000 acres of marsh, ponds, grasslands, and seasonal wetlands offer nurture and cover for the millions of birds in traverse.
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