inland California

CA has amazing diversity of landscape and land. Obviously, there are the beautiful shorelands (previous post), scenic mountains and great national parks, monuments, etc. In the valleys, farming is extensive, in many different forms. There are lots of animals, particularly cows - you know - "a California cow is a happy cow." There is a huge variety of crops, mostly from orchards (apples, cherries, oranges, lemons, grapefruits, nuts, etc) and from vines (grapes for wine!). One day we kept wondering what we were smelling, it seemed so out of place, not horrible, but not great - Greg figured it out - garlic fields! It seems like a lot of work is done manually still - of course illegals provide cheap labor, so why pay for expensive machinery?! These two pictures show very common farm scenery.

Twisting the bike through the mountains south of San Luis Obispo, we had great vistas,

rocky foothills, and


soft rolling hills that looked like soft golden brown velvet.