Did you love splashing in puddles during your youth? In the dry climate where I grew up, it was especially fun. In recent years we’ve been reminded that this is a dry climate too. Flying the Santa Ynez River we were struck by the “puddles” our three main lakes have become. Jameson is showing its heart, with that shape formed by the only remaining water.
5460 Jameson Reservoir
The puddles are so small that splashing in them (or boating, fishing, etc.) are pretty much prohibited to conserve and protect the dwindling water supply. Gibraltar Reservoir looks even worse, looking from the shallow end toward the dam.
5446 Gibraltar Reservoir
Most striking though is Lake Cachuma as you can see by comparing this next pic with the one on the wiki link above.
5396 Lake Cachuma
Rather than red dirt beneath the blue haze, this is usually a lot of blue water surrounded by green hills with sometimes white caps on those distant mountains. According to the SB County OneRain website Jameson is at a hopeful 30% of capacity, but the much larger and more crucial Gibraltar & Cachuma are down to 14% & 15% respectively. Hopefully we’ll have nourishing rain this Winter accumulating in moderate amounts with no flash floods. If so, it will be fun to fly over and get lush pix to share and cruise the hills checking out all the waterfalls.
John & Anne Wiley 
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