Lompoc: Part One

I arrived in this great ol town Friday afternoon. First things first, I rode up the grade, surprised at how easy it was. I reveled in the warmth, open spaces and really the smells of the woods and bushes. Oh how I missed them. Some of the first things you notice when you get here is a rather large outcropping of white rock that can be seen across the Santa ynez river basin, looking from downtown. The next is when you go up to the Burton Mesa and you see that it is all sand! Beach soil 10 miles inland and yet there abounds a flora reminiscent of Muir's summer sierra foothills; pine trees, chaparral, manzanita, and chamise filled the air and my imagination. 

Every morning was a different adventure. The first was Miguelito canyon. I rode up for a few miles and then hit a grueling 13% grade. Thankfully it was short. The land was a wonderful blend of forest and beach flora, a mixing of aromas from the beaches and the deep forest. The next was Sweeney road, which lead to what I like to call crescent ridge. It is a remarkable outcropping of diatomaceous earth left from the time this land was a seabed. The road takes you right alongside the ridge, so much so that looking to see it requires looking straight up. In the distance in the Santa Ynez riverbed, trees stood with all of their leaves intact, blazing in color through a perpetual autumn (though I was told that this color recently came about with the freakish cold spell that passed over the central coast weeks prior). I rode the required distance to ensure all of these photos. I then rode off to the east end of town, soaking in all of the beauty, and all of the smells. Summer smells. Sugary smells. As I rode down one hill I was bathed in warmth. Oh it was excellent! It was like being In the old south again! I broke a sweat many a time that day. As I hinted at, it never gets cold long. While downtown is often fogged over and cool this time of year, the Mesa remains in the hands of Warmth and Light. Later that day, I was riding up above fog level, and I took in sweet aromas, spicy aromas and even the aroma of 

What I called "sweet mint ice cream" when it first hit my nostrils a year ago. And the sunlight in the last two hours f he day always gets me. As the land begins to prepare for bed, and the day draws so a close , The Lord almost seems to tuck a blanket over the land, and the sky turns the color of the sun. Back east we call the Blue Ridge Mountains such because the color of the mountains begins as green up close and fades to blue as you look farther away. In coastal California, mountains fade to white in the day, and to yellow and finally orange in the afternoon.