I like how fog and low clouds along the coast stimulate my imagination. Right after takeoff I imagine the fog coming in quickly and preventing our return to SBA so we end up landing in Santa Ynez.
1822 Fickle Fingers of Fog
Then I see familiar favorites like “Lake” Los Carneros and forget the fog to imagine strolling there as we’ve done in solitude or with groups. Or I recall the time we paddled a new inflatable kayak there. I also imagine spotting the cute bobcat family reputed to live there.
1823 Imagine Los Carneros
I enjoy seeing what people do with “their” property (in quotes because many cultures use rather than own land). Not just buildings and landscapes, but secret gardens like this one above the Loretto Plaza back lot. Imagine the wonderful fresh vegetables, and puttering with your hands in the earth.
1828 Secret Garden
As everyone who’s read many posts on this blog well knows, my imagination is strongly stimulated by rock formations. Also by features like these.
1836 Imaginary Nooks
Allow yourself a moment to study the above pic, looking for round holes in the sandstone. How many can you count? So imagining geological processes that would create holes like that, I come up with river flow. I imagine the rocks horizontal rather than tilted up to nearly vertical as they are now. Water rushing past deposits a small boulder in a crevice, and over many years the boulder is joined by others that swirl in an eddy until they wear a hole down into the sandstone. Problems with this theory: eons since the rock face was tilted vertical; and some holes that are arch-shaped. Here’s a closer view of the area just to the right of the above pic.
1836 Nature or Culture?
Imagine some ancient culture(s) that would use harder stone to hollow out holes like these. They’d be safe from predators and invaders, close to a good water supply, and have a spectacular view of the ocean and lands below. Imagine if they built wicker platforms and even roofs out from the holes, so that entire groups or tribes could hang out there to hunt and fish while supplementing the invader early warning system for their comrades on the plains below. When I fly past features like these, I often imagine such things. I’m a stone age warrior there, or a condor gliding past. 🙂
John & Anne Wiley 
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