Scavenging Beauty: A Memoir in Walks

Photographs, Chapter by Chapter

Chapter 1

Stepping out

Various tools I used to track the walks

Photo album, street map, spreadsheet and notebook.

Map Scrap

I went through multiple maps throughout the years of the project. They’d fall apart from frequent use or get lost during a walk, Eventually I resorted to mounting a map of Santa Cruz onto a foam core board to use as a master map.,

Schwings

Right around the time I started the walks, I was in a small bookstore in the Ferry Building in San Francisco and discovered these little shoe wings. I couldn’t resist. I got them in a range of colors. I gave a gold pair to a podiatrist, a pink pair to a little girl in red tennis shoes, silver to a PE teacher. I wore mine on every walk for the first few years of the project, until they were spent.

Crumbling Gravestone

One of many crumbling gravestones in Santa Cruz’ historic Evergreen Cemetery. I’ve been intrigued by graveyards since I was 19 and I’ve loved discovering a range of them throughout Santa Cruz County and along the coast of California.

Last Vestiges of Santa's Village

I looked for an abandoned elf shoe or a candy cane. No luck. But I did find some old receipt logs…

Shrooms Found!

I was floored by the bittersweet discovery, after my sad visit to the remains of Santa’s Village, of the original mushrooms from the park. These were near the Civic Center and as I made my way through the streets of Scotts Valley, I discovered more of them, in private yards.

Chapter 2

Pieces of Eight

The Eight (plus one):

Front row, left to right: Cathy holding Shasta (Debbie’s daughter), Jerry holding Margaret, John, Edie, Kevin.

Back row, left to right. Angelica and Debbie.

Circa 1974

Benches Along West Cliff Drive

One of many spots along West Cliff Drive to sit and take in the view.

Sanderlings on the Move

This shot was taken with a slow shutter speed and panning.

The Jump-in Point

Lighthouse Point in evening light.

Starling

When the light hits just right…

Surfer Guy With Pussy Hat

He’s such an ally!

Practice

Testing new wings on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.

Saddlebags

A pollen-laden honey bee on a fried egg poppy.

Chapter 3

Discovering Snowflakes

Blue Butterfly

I was enchanted the first time I saw one. Now that I have an eye for them, I spot them from time to time. They still enchant me every time.

Hide and Seek

I laughed aloud. It made me think of my sister Margaret, the youngest of the eight, who would hide behind a narrow tree, thinking that since she couldn’t see us, we couldn’t see her, though she was in plain sight.

Cedar Waxwing

A bare tree full of cedar waxwings and ripe persimmons. I have to remind myself to breathe while I try to get a good shot of something so stunning.

Tiny Mushrooms

I tried multiple angles to get the shot I wanted, which involved fully stretching out on my back in the dirt. For this effect, I used a flash, something I rarely do.

Fungi among I

The macro lens is an invaluable probing tool. I often see a small speck of color and use my macro to figure out what I’m seeing. On this occasion, it was tiny fungi. Another time, what looked like a tiny yellow cluster turned out to be a nest of dozens of baby garden spiders.

Bug

Sometimes I research the things I “discover” and delve into facts about them. Other times, like in the case of this beauty, I like to just remember the moments of noticing it, observing it, and trying to take its portrait. There’s a saying, attributed to Claude Monet that comes to mind frequently when I’m out exploring, “To see we must forget the name of the thing we’re looking at.” Other times, I’m so ravenous for information that I take up precious brain space with nerdy facts that thrill me and bore my friends and family.

Bright Red Beetle

I did try to identify this bug. The closest match I could find is one called a cardinal beetle.

Pink and Orange

I believe this is a type of cucumber beetle. Mostly, I see the green ones. I’ve seen so many amazing beetles throughout the walks, but the Ohlone Tiger Beetle, endemic to Santa Cruz, remains elusive. Heartbreakingly, their range has dwindled to a mere 200-300 acres in the remaining small patches of coastal prairie lands throughout the county. I hike frequently in an area where they are sometimes spotted. There are signs posted reminding cyclists and hikers to tread carefully. The tiger beetle could be a brooch of emerald and copper with a dot of gold ink spilled on each of its elytra (hard outer wings).

Monarch Caterpillar

Santa Cruz is on the flight path of migrating monarchs who generally congregate in a few locations around town, primarily Lighthouse Field State Beach and Natural Bridges State Beach. The caterpillars fatten up on milk weed.

Monarchs

When it’s cold, they look like leaves on their favored eucalyptus trees but when the temperature rises, they open their wings in a dazzling display of orange.

Lady Buggish

This guy looked like a lady bug, but the outer shell was gray. Possibly what’s called the ashy gray ladybug.

Green on Pink

A close-up look reveals intricate patterns on this bug.

Wild Turkey Feathers

Part of the apothecary.

Under Decaying Bark

Bustling ants with eggs. I can scarcely resist digging through decaying logs, but I’ve begun to try. One time, I pulled off a big piece of rotting bark and a bunch of salamander came stumbling out, blinded by the sudden bright light. I still feel a pang of guild when I picture it.

Snowflake!

The pinnacle of beauty.

More Snowflakes

Same Day. Same Place. Totally different shape.

Still another shape

This is a terrible shot, but I really want you to see the shape of this particular snowflake.

Chapter 4

Sitting in the Dirt

Dewdrops in a Web

I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but that would change if I could gently lift this work from its string and fasten it about my neck.

Counting Rocks

to count and weigh and balance and sort.

Fossilized Sand Dollars

Seeing these in Scotts Valley was one of the things that woke up an interest in history in me. They are assumed to be between 2 and 12 million years old.

A Butterfly's Proboscis

I had never looked closely enough to see a butterfly’s proboscis. Zooming in on this image, when I got home and processed my photographs, I noticed the curly straw and marveled.

Big Web

The variety in shape, size and patterns of spider webs is baffling.

Chapter 5

Put the Moon Where You Want it

Fiddlehead Ferns

…and me without my saute pan and lemon butter.

Coyotes

My first time spotting a coyote was about two years into project in a neighborhood near a local golf course, DeLaveaga Gold and Lodge. I was nervous and the resulting photo shows it with a blur. Since then, I’ve seen and photographed dozens of coyotes individually and in groups, thankful for my telephoto lens so I can keep a respectful distance. The shot shown was taken in 2021, when I’d transitioned from walking the streets to hiking the local trails.

That Gem of Moss and Light

Sometimes I miss the early days of the project when I was so overwhelmed by the simplest beauty that I could become utterly absorbed in something so simple as watching light filter through an opening in a fence. I took multiple photos of this exact spot and learned quit about my camera in the process.

Witches Butter

This edible (but not flavorful) fungi is also known as witches gum.

Refracted Light

Some of the things I discovered on the walks left me giddy with wonder. The first time I noticed what I later learned was refracted light in a spider’s web, I felt like the beauty would break me, like I didn’t have enough space in my heart to hold it all. I was walking in a wooded area and saw long strands of web undulating in a gentle breeze with rainbows caught in them. I was so stirred that I just stood and stared until the light changed and colors faded. After seeing the same phenomenon a couple of times, I started trying to capture the colors in a photograph and when I met with success my heart expanded palpably.

Color Combo

I’ve never given much thought to textiles, but the color combination in this web made me want to design clothes or at least try to find an outfit to match this spectrum of browns and blues and golds.

Pink Meadow Grasshopper

Don’t even get me started on finding a pink grasshopper.

Shadow Puffball Mushrooms

I guess I already spent my giddy-chip on the sider web light show. Let’s just say, the feeling of growing connectedness with the natural world was greatly enhanced when I discovered the spore-delivery mechanism of this otherworldly looking fungi.

Chapter 5 (continued)

A Few of my Favorite (and a few of my least favorite) “Mistakes” While Learning Photography

Flock in Rain

I would be really proud of this photograph if I’d taken it deliberately. I like it regardless. As I transitioned from my camera’s automatic setting to the manual setting, I took countless similar photos. It still happens when I have the urge to respond so quickly to a scene that I forget to adjust my settings. In this case, the shutter was slow and my movement caused a blur. Ideally, in such a photo, at least one or two features are clear while the rest of the image is blurred. (See the eye of the middle sanderling in the Chapter 2 section.)

Oops!

I love that in photography you often learn from your mistakes by repeating them. I was thrilled when this image popped up on my computer screen as I processed my photos from a walk. I asked photographer friends how I might repeat the “mistake” This is how I learned about “panning”, setting controls for a slow shutter speed, then following a moving subject briefly.

The Redman Hirahara House on Wheels

I almost deleted this photo because the truck obscured the house I was shooting, but looking closer, I noticed that the house looked like it was actually being transported by the truck. The truck was moving down the road but I happened to have my controls set for a fast shutter speed so the motion was “frozen” in the image.

Overexposure

If only there was a market for overexposed photos.

A Fun Overexposure

There’s a swing hanging from old pier pilings on a difficult-to-reach beach in the town of Davenport. I took this from the cliffs high above. On a later visit, I did manage to climb down to the swing and fully explore the beach.

Underexposure

Ideally, I would have opened up the shutter, or increased the ISO to allow more light.

Blur

There’s something dreamy about an image of something that’s recognizable but slightly obscured.

Orange Morning

This was one of my first attempts at what might be considered a landscape photograph. I was very happy with how it turned out. I returned to the same spot several times trying the same view in different lights until a woman who lives in a house just out shot invited me to come through her house and get the shot from her balcony. The “mistake” in this image is that I added text with the street name. I did this with all the photos for the first few years of the project, but failed to make a copy before messing with the photograph. Just saying…copy before you mess with your images.

One of My Favorite Treehouses

Same here. I changed the image to a black and white in post processing. I like it a lot, but because I failed to make a copy of the image before applying an effect, I no longer have a colored copy…

Chapter 6

Sister Status

Wood Ducks

Impossible, and yet…

Little Cabin in the Woods

Paradise Park is a small community of freemasons who, in 1924, started using the grounds of what was once the California Powderworks as a summer retreat. Over the years it has become a an established residential community.

The Powder Works Bridge

This bridge, also known as the Paradise-Masonic Bridge, is one of only ten remaining covered bridges in California and of those, it is the only one with diamond shaped windows to allow light into the otherwise dark interior. Santa Cruz is home to three of the ten covered bridges including the tallest one in the country, the Felton Covered Bridge.

Diamond Shaped Window

In addition to the diamond-shaped windows, the Powder Works Bridge is festooned with fairy lights.

Italian Gardens

A tiny library along rural Ocean Street Extension highlighting one era of the neighborhood’s historical roots. The area was called Italian Gardens from the mid 1800s-1900s in reference to the families who immigrated from Italy and settled there.

Figs

One of the many types of fruit found along Ocean Street Extension, which has a long history in farming.

Chapter 7

Belonging

Sea Star Muscle

A sea star consuming a large mussel.

Minus Tide

Exposed rocks during a very low tide at a beach right at the county line between Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties.

Snail Tracks in the Sand

And people say my handwriting is hard to decipher!

Snail Spiral

This one’s easier to read.

School/House

This little building in a rural coastal area of Santa Cruz was used as a schoolhouse for neighboring families in the 1960’s, then as a residence until it burned down in the CZU fires of 2020. As I wandered through the area I met a man who is a botanist who attended school there as a child. Santa Cruz also lost the historic Alba Schoolhouse in the CZU fires along with over 900 residential homes, historic structures, and much of our beloved Big Basin Park, including its visitor’s center. The fire also took the life of one long time Santa Cruz resident who lived simply in nature for decades.

Red Winged Blackbirds

The red shoulders of the male red winged blackbirds make a valentine-in-motion when a flock takes to the air.

Stay a While

The classic ever-ready chess board on the blue picnic tables inside Swanton Berry Farm.

Raspberry Lemonade on Tap

Yum. Just yum.

The Old Cement Plant

How I yearn to explore this place square foot-by-square foot.

More Cement Plant

Those tin roofs and little windows…

Tunnels

I’ve tried a few different tunnels in the area. One landed me on the other side of the highway. Another required slogging through knee deep water. But this is the one, I’m told by reliable sources, that once enabled access to the basement portions of the cement plant. Alas, it is no longer passable.

Artichokes

I resist the urge to take one home. But one time, I walked through the artichokes with a friend who had permission to pick. Food you pick yourself is the best. Not to get off topic, but another friend once took me to his family’s farm where I got to ride a beach cruiser through a watermelon field, chose and pick a melon, ride back to the house with it under my arm and crack it open and feats. After marriage and kids and getting a grand baby, that was among the peak moments of my life.

Chapter 8

Love and History

Trinket

This was one among the toys left near the site of the landslide in the Santa Cruz mountains, commemorating the children who lost their lives.

Fritch Creek Road

Where Love Creek Road and Fritch Creek Road and their respective namesake creeks meet.

Chapter 9

Why Tom Jones Couldn’t Wear High Heels

Apples (and Stuff)

It was that apple in the upper right corner. Best apple ever…until I found the hauer apple…and the apple I got permission to pick on Mount Madonna Road. I never pass by fruit and vegetable stands without making a small purchase.

Egg Farm

Sometimes I walk into areas I’ve never seen or heard about and find myself astonished that I’m in my own town. The same place I’ve lived for over forty-five years. I had no idea there was a massive egg farm in the county. As I walked this road (after an extensive visit to the egg farm), I ran into a friend and stopped to chat along the roadside. The egg farm is a daily sight for her.

Apple Orchard

The house I coveted only to learn that it is simply the garage.

Fruit and Flowers From a Stranger

Walking along a country road, I stopped to chat with a woman through her cyclone backyard fence. She gave me a cutting of the flowers she was trimming and a persimmon. She told me to wait a day or two to let it ripen. I waited a minute or two instead. It was delicious.

Dough the Rooser

I met Doug the Rooster in the Fanning Grade area, a rural neighborhood. His person was trimming his apple trees and gave me a couple of apples which quickly chased the persimmon from the gardener half a mile up the road. Yet another type of apple whose name I wished I’d retained. So absurdly delicious.

Buzzard

This is the buzzard that eyed me from his post as I walked from Pleasant Valley Road onto Freedom Boulevard. I love how my telephoto lens allows me to see so much more detail than I could possibly make out from such a distance. Without it, I would never have learned that vultures have see-through nostrils.

Delicious Fuel

Tacos Morenos opened their first restaurant in 1982, three years after I moved to Santa Cruz. So many, many corn quesadillas ago. I almost always brought my food with me on these walks, but if I knew I’d be in the vicinity of Tacos Morenos or Gayle’s Rosticerria and Bakery, or Zoccoli’s Deli…I planned accordingly.

Avocado Road

I was in a rush when I walked Avocado Road but I wasn’t leaving until I spotted at least one Avocado. I finally found it at the end of the road, hanging over a fence. I made a shadow puppet on Shadow Court. I found a feather on Feather Lane. I spotted a swan on Swanton Road. I brought a jar of candy with me when I walked to the corner of Ice Cream Grade and Candy Lane (my favorite intersection ever.)

The Corner of Ice Cream Grade and Candy Lane

Many of the walks were full of serious thoughts, new revelations, and reckoning with challenging memories. But I also experienced great joy, playfulness, wonder and overwhelming gratitude throughout.

Tailgate

My friend Scott’s truck as he drives away after giving me a lift back to my car during a particularly overzealous adventure.

Chapter 10

Helpers

Disconnected

Such a surprise to suddenly come upon a British icon, a red phone box, in the middle of nowhere.

Just My Luck

I added this craggy old lucky penny to the collection of things I’ve found along my walks (feathers, tow hooks, a boyscout bolo, hand tools, squiggles of wire, striated paper wasp nests, rocks…)

Miles and Izzie on Cadillac Road

Miles went on a walk with me in Scotts Valley during the summer between Junior high and high school.

Chapter 11

Moving In

Waterfall

Waterfall in Aptos. My friend Consuelo told me about it and hiked the fourteen mile round trip to reach it with me. I went back three additional times.

Plunge Pool

The small plunge pool at the base of the waterfall.

Wing

Wing on a log as I hiked in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Ants

It has been mind-blowing to begin to understand all the worlds within worlds that take place without our notice. I get lost in looking closer and closer at things I might once have walked by or likely even stepped on without ever registering what’s underfoot.

Watching ants convey a dead bee toward their nest sent me on yet another hunt for information.

Chapter 12

Meeting the Neighbors

True Tulip Flower

This flower was given to me by an elderly man I met as I wandered through an area known as the Banana Belt in Santa Cruz. He planted the tree himself decades earlier.

Tree house

This was one of the first treehouses I noticed on the walks. while I was taking a photo of it, the man who built it came out of his house. He let me climb up and check it out.

Tree Ladder

Hard to resist climbing up.

Dream House

This massive treehouse is on a road that is partially in Santa Cruz County and partially in San Mateo County. Since My policy is to walk the full length of every street, it’s part of the project.

Gem Store

I stopped at this gem store on the sidewalk where two little girls were selling glass gems and seashells. When I asked them how much a gem would cost me one of them said. “It’s twenty-five cents for one or twenty-five cents for two or a dollar each.” I got a green and blue.

Falling Leaf

How I’ve tried, but I’ve never captured a good falling leaf shot.

Fry Bread

in Capitola I was invited to sit with a group of five sisters as they made lentil fry bread, then got to enjoy one before continuing my walk.

Historic Graveyard

Among other notables, the Evergreen Cemetery is the final resting place for London Nelson, an emancipated slave who became a benefactor to the local grade schools. One of my first jobs in Santa Cruz at age 18 was at the Louden Nelson Community Center Child Care Center. Louden was an incorrect spelling of Mr. Nelson’s first name which has recently been remedied.

Apples in Skyland

In the sliver of the town of Los Gatos that lands within Santa Cruz County, I met an apple farmer picking fruit in an orchard that he had planted fifty years before.

Hand made Tools

When Diana Marcum, a LA Times reporter, came to Santa Cruz to walk with me in preparation for writing an article about my project, she described an aspect of my walks as “Chatting with affable men in garages” This photo was from just such a chat when I met a man working in his garage in Watsonville and he gamely allowed me to take a series of photos of his collection of hand planes and other hand made tools.

Octopus in Purple Sea Slug Dye

This small octopus, which I found in the tide pools in the Pleasure Point area, was temporarily dyed pink by the ink of a sea cucumber.

Nudibranch

Bringing the lowly slug to new heights.

PINK

I smiled as I walked by these larger than life pink slippers and the table and chairs to match. The homeowner was working in her extensive garden and invited me to tour the grounds. Later, I posted a photo of the slippers and pink furniture on my social media page and quickly heard from Nick that the homeowner is a friend of his family and that he had painted that pink furniture. Nick Borelli is a local photographer. The first time I met him was on one of my walks in the Glen Arbor area of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Secret Waterfall

As I neared the end of walking the 4,121 streets of Santa Cruz County, I took stock of the streets that I’d been unable to access due to secured gates. I put out a social media post listing these streets and got a number of replies. In a couple of cases, friends or acquaintances had gate codes because they or someone they knew lived in the gated areas. My friend Michele was able to get permission for a couple of roads because she knew people through her work as a building contractor. She even joined me one walking a stunning road in Bonny Doon. I got access to one sprawling community by visiting real estate open houses and taking swift walks around the streets while I was there. Nick helped me get access to a road that was an absolute wonderland of creeks and waterfalls and lush greenery and joined me as a tour guide as I walked it.

Banana Slug Eating Flowers

A coyote pouncing on prey, a squirrel eating a huge mushroom, a seagull swallowing an entire starfish, a blue jay pulverizing a gopher, a hawk eating a pigeon. And, here, a banana slug eating tiny pink flowers. What is it about watching animals interact with their food? It’s fascinating.

Artist at Work

This artist was on the cliffs above main beach painting the scene after a king tide. I loved that she used her straw hat as a place to store her extra paint brushes.

King Tide

The scene the painter was observing.

Handmade Mailbox

I stopped to admire this homemade mailbox and ended up visiting with the man who made it. It’s a replica of his home.

Chapter 13

Reconnecting

Mother Newt

If I had to pick a favorite among all the photographs I’ve taken, this would be it. I have no idea how it would be judged technically, but I worked hard to get the lighting right (filtering the sunlight with my own shadow) and the photograph brings me back to the awe I felt sitting in the cool river in the drizzle watching life. I love how the light at the top of the reed, the sky reflected in the newts eye, and the eggs in their sacks echo each other throughout the vertical plane of the image.

May All Beings Be Happy

A reference to loving-kindness mediation practiced in buddhism utilized to cultivate compassion for all sentient beings and to reduce suffering.

Buzzer

The art work. Who is the artist?

Surfing Surf Scotters

These guys come by their name honestly. They full-on surf the waves.

Surf Scotter Between Sets

Ungainly on land. Spry in water.

Conclusion

Break Time

When we’re walking in towns, Jo and I will occasionally stop for a treat. In Manhattan beach Jo grabbed her go-to chocolate on chocolate Hagaan-Dazs ice cream bar and I got a random ice cream sandwich from the ice box of a tiny grocery store. After I took the first bite, I flattened out the wrapper I’d torn off without notice so I could see what exactly I was eating. This was not a run-of-the-mill ice cream sandwich. It was a Cream’which artisan ice cream sandwhich from the Manhattan Beach Creamery, as it happens. Heaven.

Lunch Time

I find it captivating to watch egrets in the shallows at low tide, looking for a meal.

Consuelo in Her S'hero Pose

Throughout the coastal walks, a couple of friends, Consuelo and Bruce, have occasionally joined us for a walk. Consuelo is dwarfed here by a towering cliff face. But make no mistake, this woman is a power house.

Walking in Our Tick Suits

When ticks are at their worst along the coast, we don Tyvek suits to minimize the risk of bites. Here, Jo, Consuelo, and Bruce assess our route.

Jo in the Tolowa Dunes

Jo and I have three different sections we’re working on to complete our California coastal walk. Here we’re working our way from the California/Oregon Border south.

Home Away From Home

Jo and I both set our tents up like cozy little apartments.

Fresh Picked Breakfast

We often stay in Hipcamps when we’re out on our adventures. Our favorite so far was Ossia Valley Farm in Crescent City. Within minutes of arrival we were picking fresh potatoes out of mounds of dirt. We fried them up for breakfast later in the trip.

Redwood Forest Camping

In addition to Hipcamps, we sometimes stay at state campgrounds.

In the Woods

A favorite trail in the woods in Santa Cruz.