Time to leave the Vaca Mountains and English Hills again, at least for awhile,
turning and getting on I-80, the northside of the Lagoon Mountains as a bumpy dark green horizon,
the south side of the Poverty Hills starting to sere out against rogue cumuli.
Harriet's driving, so I get to take slightly better pictures than normal of some of the 680 sights, including Long Barn and its backing fingers of vegetated canyons reaching up to the Sulfur Springs summits,
Eden,
the Hovel Hills,
and Horse Farm
On beyond, approaching cloudier conditions near Orinda,
up to
and through the Caldecott Tunnel
for another rehearsal of Antigone: III-V and San Rafael News at Berkeley's Chamber Arts with Eliza, Kristin, Beth, and Janet;
then to the City for a brief practice with John Partridge, checking the Goat Hall mail, dropping the PHNH key off with Erling, lunching in the chill of Connecticut Yankee, and checking out the Phoenix Theatre near Union Square (an interesting 49-seat venue six floors up in the Native Sons Building) -- ultimately heading to Marin, approaching the Rainbow Tunnel
through the 101 Headlands Canyon,
down the Waldo Grade with Mt. Tam rising.
Stopping at the Strawberry Starbucks yields views north to Horse Hill,
west to an outlying eminence in greater Mill Valley,
and south back to Marin City and the highlands beyond.
It's Symphony night, but we're early, so we take our leisure by driving the long way around China Camp, three-quarters circling San Pedro Mountain,
past the Brick Yard,
to the heroic viewpoint at Rat Island Cove, where Mt Burdell looks great
at any distance.
So does the isle itself
(just offshore of the picnic area),
a spot of singularity,
as distinctive a presence as the shadowy Turtleback beyond.
We arrive at the Civic Center, with Frank Lloyd Wright's singular spire,
and views of the north slope of San Pedro Mountain (across from the druid-circle-flowers of the duck pond's artificial island),
the eccentric light sculpture in the round-about (one assumes Frank Lloyd Wright's own?), and
Mt. Tam glowing in the half-light beyond the parking lot.
Concert is fine (and in color, live) and will be reviewed tomorrow, appearing in Commuter Times this Friday, and excerpts at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com.
Page 4 of Variations on Americana orchestrated upon return.
