Shulie Photographs Love Creek

My (good-natured) passive aggressive berating in my last post inspired Shulie to finally go through all the photos she took on our excursion up Love Creek from a couple of weeks ago, and she's posted a select few on her photography blog.

Photograph by Shulamit Seidler-Feller, source.

I've made mention of a certain memorial up Love Creek Road in the past. I want to write about it myself in the (near!) future, but Shulie's beat me to the punch, and has some really lovely things to say about it in her own post that are worth reading. I highly recommend that you go check out Shulie's post on Love Creek -- and the rest of her blog, too!

Thank you, Shulie, the photos are beautiful!

Fourth Postcard of the Summer

So this completely terrifying mondo-postcard came in the mail today. 

Why doesn't the Virgin have eyebrows? WHY?? (Isn't it terrible that
the Virgin and Roscoe are looking at you at the same time? )

It was sent by my friend Shulie, you see. She drove up from LA with a friend for a super quick visit a couple of weeks ago, which was wonderful. We ate tacos and drank kosher Spanish wine, and then had brunch the next morning and napped and took a quick drive down Love Creek Road, the most famous road in Ben Lomond.*

Wasn't Jean Paul Gaultier the one who had the super embarrassing drunken, anti-Semitic meltdown at a Paris café?
And was fired from his fashion house and had to go to French court? And looks like a pirate? EXCELLENT. 
UPDATE 8/01/12: NO! It was John Galliano -- thanks for spoiling my fantasy, Shulie! 

Shulie took some photos** at the toy box memorial I alluded to in a previous post, and a couple more further down the creek. She's promised to share them with me (HINT HINT SHULIE), and I'm just dying of curiosity and anticipation.

Thanks for the monstrous Virgin, Shulie! It's already up on the fridge, right next to Eva Perón and Ché!

***

* I'm seriously starting to think that Love Creek Road needs its own tag. Okay, done.
** Did you know that Shulie is a very talented photographer? And that she has a photo blog? Go and see!

Walking with Mr. Coe: Roadside Blackberries

The early mornings have been cool and misty in the Santa Cruz mountains over the past 5 or 6 days, long-sleeves and knit hat weather -- welcome relief from the mega-heat blast we got last Saturday: high 90's, no wind. It was like being in an oven. I prefer this week's weather much more. Roscoe and I have been taking advantage of the morning cool, taking our walks through the neighborhood before the mist and gloom burns off mid-day. 

Ben Lomond is covered in blackberry bushes -- they grow wild along the backroads and even on highway 9 -- and the berries are just now starting to ripen. EXCITIIIING.

Here's an extra enormous blackberry bush along good old Love Creek Road. It's more of a hedge, and runs along the road for quite a bit. Roscoe likes it.

Oh yeah, that's a happy dog.

Mr. Coe has lots of favorite stops he insists that we make throughout town. They're all generally pee-mail stops, of course.

Roscoe, checking his pee-mail at one of his favorite telephone poles.
Note hidden sign in the background.

And now for some more weird and wonderful signage. Above and below, "No Trespassing: Keep Out" signs. 

"Private Property: Keep Out" JUST STATING THE OBVIOUS.

And here's a sad one:

She whistles like: tweet tweew.

I really hope they find their lost cockatiel. Whoever made this sign (and the tens more I found posted all around town) did a great job of covering all pertinent information: Sily doesn't talk, but she does have a distinctive whistle. That's good to know. I hope they find her.

Walking with Mr. Coe

Roscoe and I went on a nice, long walk through the neighborhood early this morning. We decided to turn up Love Creek Road in order to stay cool as the morning got warmer, and stuck with it until the road narrowed to a single lane. The Santa Cruz Mountains are full of weird little nooks and crannies -- hollows and gulches -- full of strange tales, abandoned camps, ghosts, memories. Love Creek may be one of the most storied of them all. 

Approaching Love Creek Road, in Ben Lomond.

 It's a beautiful walk. The steep gulch walls provide near-constant shade for redwoods, moss, and ferns to grow, the road crosses the creek a handful of times, and there are quite a few nice little (and not so little) cabins to ogle at along the way.

Mr. Coe likes this walk especially, I think mainly because it's as close as he can get to going on a hike without hopping in the car and going to a local state park or wildlife reserve. No sidewalk to stick to, lots of stinky spots and bugs and bushes and undergrowth to tromp through right at the edge of the road. 

Roscoe, mountain scout

Though he does have to stay on leash.

"EXCUSE ME, CAN WE CONTINUE PLEASE?"

Love Creek, like most of the San Lorenzo Valley, is full of weird and wonderful signage. Especially "No Trespassing" signs. Like, everywhere. The last house up before the road narrows has an amazing road sign nailed up to a pole in the yard that reads "15 MPH ASSHOLE". I really wanted to take a picture, but was too scared to actually pull out my camera and do so lest I infuriate these people with such aggressive taste in yard decor. 

Love Creek residents like to clearly mark their PRIVATE PROPERTY. 

I didn't notice the sign below until we passed it for the second time on our way back down the creek towards town. I stood there looking at it for a long time, and just couldn't figure it out. What was there to witness? Had the evidence of the (maybe) witnessed event/thing been taken away? Was it the sand bags? Was there a slide? Was there a lot of water? Was it something else entirely? Was it an accident? Was it vandalism? Did it happen at night? Are they mad? Are they sad? Is there a reward?

So many questions.

I'd like to write more about Love Creek in the future; I think it's a super interesting place with a lot of valuable stories to tell. In the mean time, I'll leave a final photo of Roscoe checking out the toy box in the clearing right where the road narrows to pique your interest.