California has had an excellent rainy season, and for the first time in years no part of the state is suffering a drought at the moment. This moment probably won’t last long, but while it’s here I’ve been celebrating by taking pictures of water and its relatives: wildflowers, green hills, surging creeks, and so forth. This week’s photos are dedicated entirely to California’s water bounty, starting yesterday with my pictures of our local poppy bloom. It continues today with this picture of Ortega Falls, rendered in the long-exposure silkiness that everyone loves:

March 18, 2019 — Cleveland National Forest, California

And now for the sad story that accompanies this. In last week’s superbloom post I mentioned that I had only seen the bloom accidentally: I was on Ortega Highway for a different reason and accidentally overshot my destination. Well, this was my destination.

I had driven out to Ortega Falls hoping that it would be nice looking what with all the water we now have. But I also chose it because the falls are only a short quarter-mile hike from the road. That sounded perfect.

And it turned out to be true: the hike was only a quarter of a mile. Unfortunately, it was a quarter mile almost literally straight up and down in places, something I didn’t quite realize until I had already gone too far. Normally, even for an old fogey like me, this would be an annoyance but not much more. Unfortunately, several years ago I lost a big chunk of my breathing capacity for reasons that remain a mystery to everyone. Then a few weeks ago I got a cold that settled into my chest, and I discovered that with my breathing already compromised chest congestion was a real killer. By last week, however, the chest congestion was nearly gone, I thought, and a quarter mile would be no big deal.

I was so, so wrong. On my way back up from the falls, I was pulling myself up about ten feet at a time before stopping for five minutes to catch my breath. Rinse and repeat. I finally made it back to the top, but I almost collapsed doing it. It took me five hours to fully recover, which is about 4½ hours longer than I’ve ever needed to recover from anything in my life. The combination of breathing problems, chemotherapy, and chest congestion was something I should have taken far more seriously.

And to make it worse, I only got one picture out of the deal. It’s an OK picture, but certainly not worth the effort it took.

TOMORROW: The green hills of Irvine.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate