We rented bikes and rode them across the Golden Gate Bridge. A touristy thing? I'm glad we did. Halfway, we stopped to peer over the edge. I got that tingle in the feet brought on by heights or maybe by the thought of falling. A heavy fog rolling in and engulfing us, a close-up cloud stealing away with your body's heat. The unsettling roar, not of the ocean, but of the cars traversing. Looking out over the water and the vast space above it ready to take you in, carry you away. The bridge, indifferent sentinel, red pillars reaching to infinity.

As we continued biking, I looked up at the beautiful details on the bridge, to my eye very Art Deco or maybe Art Nouveau and I kept thinking of that scene in The Neverending Story where the protagonist must cross a gate and the Sphinxes slowly open their killer-beam eyes.

I visited California in March and the first thing that struck me is the plantlife. Below, a snapshot from the 'burbs of Palo Alto and another from Berkeley.