Rather than heading straight
to work today (like a good worker drone), I took advantage of the spring
sunshine for a morning walk in Edgewood County Park with my pal Larry Stein.
Unfortunately, the unofficial entrance I wanted to use (at the Edgewood Park
& Ride lot) has been securely closed off...no doubt someone thought that
it was a safety hazard to have folks scrambling up the tall serpentine embankment.
So we ended up parking at the corner of Edgewood and Canada Road, then taking
the Edgewood Trail into the park.
Once inside the park we took a leisurely stroll, making a counterclockwise
transit of the Serpentine Loop Trail, stopping now and then to admire the
wildflowers and take pictures.
Edgewood is such a great place for observing native California Wildflowers...I
try and make at least one visit each spring season, and it's been really
interesting to see the park change over the past twenty years. When I first
visited in the mid 80's, the park was a more-or-less unimproved open space.
Motorcycle trails cut here and there through the park, and current trail
system was augmented by quite a few additional footpaths.
In the past few years, nearly all of those footpaths have been closed off
so as to keep people out of the serpentine areas...the very places where
the flowers are best! It's frustrating, to say the least, but the remediation
of the soil around the torn up portions of the trail are remarkable, so it's
hard to argue against the trail closures...they obviously benefit the flora!
You can read much more about the park at the Friends of Edgewood site (http://www.friendsofedgewood.org)
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