Back to Mt. Rubidoux

 Climbing up that hill! In a lyric from a song (I think from Kate Bush, circa 1980s) that I can't get out of my head. Yes, I climbed back up that hill, which is Mt. Rubidoux.

I decided to do something local rather than to try to visit one of the beaches. I know, if I go to the beach, I have a very limited window of time. I wanted to park at Redondo Beach and then walk to Hermosa Beach, but really, I only have from about 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (a three hour window), and I would feel rushed. I can't leave home before 9 a.m. because the morning rush hour is winding down, and I have to be on the road going home by 1 p.m. because, yes, rush hour to the eastern counties starts at about 1 to 1:30 p.m. and continues to about 7 p.m., and the drive is, to put it mildly, crushing. So, better not to risk it today. Besides, today is a sad anniversary for us, so I felt I should stay closer to home. (This is the two year anniversary of my dad's passing.)

So, I left at about 9:45 and go to the hill by about 10:15 a.m., then I began the climb up with my 6x17 camera. It was much as I remembered it, and the slog up at the beginning really takes your breath away. And to think, for a summer, I was climbing up the hill at a fast pace, and even then, I could not lose weight. It goes to show, it isn't exercise necessarily that peels away the pounds, it is appetite suppression. 

It was a beautiful walk. I love the contrast between the hills and rocks and the cityscape below. The unfortunate thing is that we didn't have dramatic clouds the way we did yesterday. The clouds would have given me dramatic vistas, but to tell the truth, they would have cut down the light too, so I would have underexposed my images even more than I did so already on what was a morning of blasting light. I used Foma 200 film, f22 and 1/125 shutter speed, with a red 25A filter, and my images were about two stops underexposed. Now I know my lesson. I either use 400 speed film or else don't use the red filter.

Here are a few of the images from today. I exposed two rolls and then, when I got home, developed them.

We made it through our sadness today. I did catch my mom crying. My brother was crying as well, from what my sister-in-law told my mom. We are all trying to cope. I look at photos of my dad and want to break down too, but I am trying as hard as I can to control myself. Still, the sadness is overwhelming.

Feliz Día de San Juan. This is the patron saint of the small village where my dad was born. Now, unfortunately, we will always associate this day with my dad's passing.