North County March Weather Has Me Spinning in Circles

Seems like with this kind of weather, it ought to be April. Let’s take today, March 25. It poured yesterday and last night on and off. I woke to sunshine, but I didn’t trust it. I went to my book shed to pull some orders so I’d have them inside to process if it rained later in the day. Sure enough, it began to pour a short time later. I listened to the rain on the roof as I processed the orders. Wanted to have them ready to go to the post office if the rain stopped again. It did.

After such a week, sunshine should not be wasted. After dropping my packages off at the post office. I noticed that lots of rain makes lots of  flowers –in the wrong places — as I mentioned in Do You Welcome All the Flowers of Spring? I stopped to take a picture. Do you think the post office should mow the lawn? Or do you like the colorful dandelions better?

After taking this picture, I went to a few more out-of the-way places where I could get a good look at storm clouds. The first stop was a left turn on Fourth Street as I headed south on Spring. The right side of Fourth on that block is a very large vacant lot. That means the view of the sky is unobstructed by buildings, trees, and other tall objects. In the distance you will see the Niblick Bridge. Above, you see the storm clouds.

Next stop was Lawrence Moore Park. I wanted to see if the river was any higher than it was on Monday. I didn’t see a noticeable change, but I did see a very swift current and a lot of others — people and dogs — out playing or walking by the river. I made another video of my quick walk along the river trail, but I will simply link to it instead of embedding it this time —The Current of the Salinas River in Paso Robles, March 25, 2011. I’d rather show you the park bench,  here. As you can see, someone has a big weeding job to do in this park before fire season. If these weeds grow any higher — and they will — no one will be able to get to this bench.

 

If you take a close look at those weeds, you will, I hope, recognize them as poison hemlock, the poison that killed Socrates, and milk thistle, with the gorgeous white striped leaves. Milk thistle actually has medicinal uses. Most folks, though, don’t try to grow it for medicine. They’d rather get rid of it when it’s really young to avoid pulling up plants taller than they are, later. Both these weeds are lovely to look at but usually unwelcome in gardens. Useful as milk thistle might be, you don’t want to touch it or walk through a patch of it while it’s growing. If someone doesn’t do some weeding here soon, you wont be able to see this bench by Easter.

 

Before leaving the river and the park, I wanted to capture the differences in the clouds as seen from different directions, since there were definite contrasts. Look east and expect pleasant weather. Look west and one is ready to run back to the car before the downpour starts again. I wanted to show you this, so I made a short video, turning around while pointing the camera at the sky.

 

I finally left the park, but could not help stopping at one of my favorite photo spots on the way — sort of — home. When you get high enough, you can see quite far on a clear day. Although we had lots of clouds, the air itself was clean after the rain, so I expected a wonderful view.  I wanted to view the city from Ariba Road ,which I access from Kiler Canyon Road off South Vine. It’s pretty far off the beaten track, and that’s why I like to take photos there . It would have been more fun with a telephoto lens, but I didn’t have one. This is what the Riverbank Tract and the Walmart center look like from the top of  Ariba Road.  And with this, I’ll make my exit and leave you to decide if Paso Robles is a scenic place to live. What do you think?