ಹೂವು ಚೆಲುವೆಲ್ಲಾ ನಂದೆಂದಿತು …

ಹೋದ ವರ್ಷ ಮೌಂಟ್ ಮಡೋನಕ್ಕೆ ಒಂದು ಸಲ ಹೋಗಿದ್ವಿ. ಈ ಸಲನೂ ಹೋಗೋಣ ಅಂತ ಹೋದ್ವಿ  ಕೆಲವು ವಾರಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ. ಮೌಂಟ್ ಮಡೋನದ  ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಕಡೆ ಹೂಗಳ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ ಕಂಡುಬಂತು. ಹೋದವರ್ಷ ಇದನ್ನ ಗಮನಿಸಿದ್ದೆವೋ ಇಲ್ವೋ ಮರೆದಿದ್ವಿ. ಸರಿ, ಮರಳಿ ಬರುವಾಗ ಇಲ್ಲೊಮ್ಮೆ ಇಣುಕಿ ನೋಡಬೇಕೆಂದುಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದೂ ಆಯಿತು. ಹಾಗೇ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ಬರುವಾಗ ಹಾಗೇ ಒಳಹೊಕ್ಕೆವು.

ಹೆಸರೂ ಕಾಣದಂತೆ ಹೂವಿನ ಭರಾಟೆ

ಹಸಿರು ಹುಲ್ಲಿನ ಹಾಸು. ಅಂಚಿನಲಿ ಚೆಂಡು ಹೂಗಳ ರಾಶಿ!

ಗುಡಾರದ ಒಳಗೊಂದಷ್ಟು, ಹೊರಗೊಂದಷ್ಟು

ಬಿಳಿ ಬಣ್ಣವಾದರೇನು? ನಾನೇನು ಚೆಲುವಾಗಿಲ್ಲವೇ?

ಬಣ್ಣ! ನನ್ನ ಒಲವಿನ ಬಣ್ಣ! ನನ್ನ ಬದುಕಿನ ಬಣ್ಣ!

ಹೂಗಳ ಜೊತೆ ಬಣ್ಣದ ಸೊಬಗಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಪೈಪೋಟಿಗೆ  ನಿಂತ ಚೋಟುಮೆಣಸಿನಕಾಯಿಗಳು!

ಹೂವಿಂದ ಹೂವಿಗೆ ಹಾರುವ ದುಂಬಿ ಏನನು ಹಾಡುತಿದೆ?

ದೂರ ಬೆಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಪುಟ್ಟ ಮನೆಯಿರಬೇಕು, ಮನೆಯ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೂವ ರಾಶಿ ಚೆಲ್ಲಿರಬೇಕು..

ಯಾರೆ ನೀನು? ರೋಜಾ ಹೂವೇ? ಯಾರೆ ನೀನು ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೂವೇ? ಹೇಳೆ ಓ ಚೆಲುವೆ!

ತಿರುಗಾಡಿ ಸುಸ್ತಾದ್ರೆ, ಅರೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಕೂತ್ಕೊಳಿ..

ಕಟ್ಟೋದಿದ್ರೆ ಕಟ್ಟಬೇಕು ಗೋಡೆ, ಇಂತಹ ಹೂವಿನ ಗೋಡೆ!

ಎತ್ತಕಡೆ ನೋಡಿದರೂ, ಬಣ್ಣವೋ ಬಣ್ಣ

ಏ:ಉ

ಎಲ್ಲಿದೆ ಇದು ಅಂತ ಕೇಳಿದ್ರಾ? ಸಿಂಜೆಂಟಾ ಫ್ಲವರ್ಸ್, ಹೆಕರ್ ಪಾಸ್ ಹೈವೇ (೧೫೨ ಪಶ್ಚಿಮ, ಗಿಲ್ರಾಯ್ ನಿಂದ ವಾಟ್ಸನ್ವಿಲ್ ಗೆ ಹೋಗೋ ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ).

-ನೀಲಾಂಜನ

Colors of Hemanta

Hemanta, is the Samskrita name for the Fall season.

‘Hema’ means gold, and Hemanta means golden hued.

Coming from the southern India, where trees do not shed the leaves nor change their color, I never appreciated the meaning of the name till I moved to more northern latitudes :).

Anyway, to make a long story short, here are some fall color pictures from around Boulder Creek, CA. By the way, California probably comes last in the list of places where people might go to see Fall colors, but what you find here is beautiful too!

-neelanjana

The Road to Paradise

To be accurate, the title should have been the ‘Road from Paradise’, for that is the road you will drive if you drove from Paradise, CA to Quincy, CA. Drive, I did, to Quincy. But not from Paradise, but from San Jose, CA area last weekend.

It was a leaf-peeping trip. California is not blessed with the typical fall foliage that the east coast of USA is known for. Not that I worry about it – because the absense of fall color also translates to more tolerable winters, and not having to scrape the snow off the windshield 🙂  To make the long story short, this day trip to Quincy, CA in Plumas county was to enjoy  the sights of the fall.

Most of the fall color wonders in CA occurs on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, bordering the state of Nevada. On the more popular passes on the western side of the mountains (like the highway 50, 80, 120, 140 etc) the vegitation is mostly coniferous, and hence evergreen, which means no fall foliage. Except in couple of passes like the Feather River Pass and the Yuba River Pass.

I knew this was a long road. At least 5 hours of drive – one way. So we made an early start @7 am. 3 + hours of drive brought us to the small town of Olivehurst, CA with a non descript main street. One Pizza Parlor. One gas station. One hardware store. And a break for us to eat our ಉಪ್ಪಿಟ್ಟು. And yes, there was some good fall color on the parking lot, sort or preface for things to  come.

 

 Maple leaf turning golden  in Olivehurst, CA

California state highway 70  going from Oroville, CA to Quincy, CA is also called the Feather river canyon. The road meanders next to the north fork of Feather river, crossing countless bridges, and a few tunnels. There are several small dams on the river. There is a big dam one at Oroville too. We skipped seeing that, but I belive we crossed it’s backwaters.

A view of North Fork of Feather River.

From Oroville to Quincy, it is about 75 miles. The first 25 miles are uneventful. You go up about 2000 feet, and then come down about the same. The road is one lane each side. But the traffic was very light.

 

Bald grey hill  

Even before we could spot any color,  one of the sights seen from miles was a grey bald hill, with trees burnt from a forest fire sometime back. I was rally hoping that our drive would not be fruitless, after watching this hill for a while.

 

Finally, color starts showing up!

All along the Feather river canyon, you will see a railway track close by. I have no clue where the rails lead to. But we spotted several freight trains on our drive. So they should be leading somewhere 🙂

After a while. color started showing up everywhere! Some of these pics were taken from inside the car, and that explains the blurriness. Entire hillsides were drenched in color.

 

 

Color, color, and more color!

The road has it’s own quota of curves. But not as bad as some other sierra roads. It is in good state of repair. One thing is it does not snow much in Feather river canyon. Actually it is the lowest pass that crosses the Sierra from west to east. But at some really nice spots, there was no place to pull over the car and take pictures 😦

 

 

More Curves, and More Color!

Finally, we made it to Quincy by 1 pm in the afternoon. Quincy is a sleepy town, (or should I say a village? I don’t know), but is the main town of Plumas county. It has a  college and even an airstrip.

We found some nice picnic benches in front of the elementary school. My son later tells me that the building also houses the Plumas county board of education. Very nice place for our ಹುಳಿಯನ್ನ and ಮೊಸರನ್ನ!

 

 Quincy Elementary School. The board says it was built in 1905! 

Rainbow tree 🙂 in front of Quincy School, and (perhaps the only?) grocery store

A street in Quincy, alive with color

 

Red sandwiched between yellow

 A street in Quincy -Trees, and cars, and electric lines!

 

Good bye Quincy!

The weather was near perfect. Not cold, but with a tinge of cool air. After a good lunch, it is time to head back home. On the way back, I noticed the colors at some places were much brighter due to the changed angle of sunlight.

Orange clad hillside

 

Another curve on the Feather river

Almost exiting the Feather river valley.

The colors will be here for another week or ten days. After that, all there will be bare trees and bleak landscape. May be something like below.

First trace of winter?

I have read that Feather canyon is beautiful in spring too- thanks to hundreds of waterfalls that line the hillside. I sense it would be great, because I saw remnats of many small falls on the roadside. I hope I will do that drive sometime. No, definitely not next year. After having to go through myriad “are we there yet?”, “why not turn back and head home right now?” from my kids 🙂 I want to give them a break.  April 2009? May be. My kids will be little more grown then. Also I am sure the questions will be different. “Did we come here to see these little waterfalls, where you can’t even swim?”

-neelanjana