Category Archives: Exploring

March 21, 2023 Intermittent Storms

Orange Bloom. March 2023

Be careful what you wish for.

My guilty pleasure is driving in hazardous conditions, and my favorite feeling is being inside a sealed car while driving in a torrential downpour.

My goal was to get to Tejon Pass northbound rest area for the night. I managed to escape the storm in Arizona. Little did I know what I was about to experience. As I left Indio, California at sunset, I noticed encompassing dark clouds to the north. The sun just set and I had about a 3 hour drive ahead of me. As I entered San Bernardino County, it began to rain. The wind picked up and the storm became fierce, lowering visibility and flooding the roadway. I had no choice but to lower my speed to 50 mph, extending my travel time. Live traffic conditions were turning for the worst. Several intermittent storms were wreaking havoc, causing accidents and slowdowns. I managed to get through the first storm, but had a building concern that it wasn’t over. While on the 210 freeway, I entered another storm. This one got me on the edge of my seat. My windshield wipers were on max, and I still couldn’t see ahead of me. As I drove underneath an overpass, I hit a large pool of water, and my windshield was blanked out for a full second. I couldn’t see a thing. I was literally scared to drive any further.

Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it, and you may not want it anymore, but it’s too late.

March 19, 2023 Spring Bloom

Wildflower Road. March 2023

Desert Bloom. March 2023

March 18, 2023 Adventure Mode

There will never be an ideal time to travel.
Work will never slow down.
No one will make time for you.
The weather will never be perfect.
If you need company, you’ll be waiting a long time to go to places only you want to go.

All Purple. March 2023

March 5, 2023 Time Flies

Watch The Waves. March 2023

When we are in school, we have a lot of time but no money.

When we have to work, we have a lot of money but no time.

When we are retired, we finally have the time and money, but no energy!

Coarse. March 2023

February 12, 2023 No Expectations

Cherry (Hygrocybe cuspidata)

Some days they are in the parking lot. Some days you’ll walk miles and not see one.

January 16, 2023 It’s Lunch Time!

Death Cap (Amanita phalloides)

I am now officially certified as a PMP (Professional Mushroom Photographer).

Don’t mind me. I’m just sitting on a log eating my cold sandwich while watching this banana slug devour a mushroom.

Mmmm… yummy Russula 😋

January 1, 2023 Rituals 🍄

Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria)

We’re all given the same 24 hours in a day. You decide how you want to spend it.

December 4, 2022 Rituals

Understory. December 2022

Spawning Salmon. December 2022

April 18, 2021

March 22, 2021

March 13, 2021

Oyster Flower (Pleurotus ostreatus)

Hounds Tongue (Cynoglossum grande)

Pacific Trillium (Trillium ovatum)

March 7, 2021 There it is!

Parrot Waxcap (Gliophorus psittacinus)

With what may be the last rain for the winter, I thought I wouldn’t be able to find the parrot waxcap this season. When I first started taking photos of mushrooms this year, I was immediately jealous of this shot by WildMacro. He mentioned it took 3 years to find it. It’s elusive nature definitely did not get my hopes up of finding it especially for an amateur like me. Despite persistent searching up and down the coast the past two months, I didn’t find it, until today.

Like I tell myself every weekend, I had a choice, stay comfortably at home, or go somewhere. Again, the uncertainty was killing me. Were there going to be mushrooms 24 hours after a decent rain? Did it rain enough? Oh great, a frost advisory. That’s not good. How far should I drive? Being an optimizer, I always have a hard time committing to a location; the paradox of choice. I narrowed my choices down to two, shut down the computer and used my intuition.

The ground was definitely wet with damp moss redwood duff. It felt very “mushroomy”, just like how a beach would feel “fishy”. I found a few wax caps early on, one had almost a greenish cap. Could this be a parrot? How am I supposed to find a green mushroom in a forest of green? It was a needle in a haystack, only the needle is the same color as the hay. The others around were more yellow and brown, keep looking. A feeling of excitement came to me as that was the closest I’ve been to finding the mushroom. Two hours in, I didn’t find much other than some nice golden waxcaps and purple Mycena that was past its prime. As I approached a bridge to the waterfall connector trail, I spotted in the corner of my eye, a round, slimy, green colored mushroom. There it is! With mushrooms, you find one and suddenly you discover a whole cluster. I lost track of time as I spent the next hour cleaning and photographing the parrots, at times I simply just stared at it. It was really that green, nothing like I’ve seen before.

With fishing, you never know if one more cast will be the one. With mushrooming, you never know if 10 more steps will uncover something. That’s what keeps me excited, the unknown, the suspense, the chance you may discover something totally unexpectedly.