Category Archives: Photographs

A few from Santa Cruz

Dining, Photographs

Lunch on the wharf.

Take Highway One and watch out for cops until you leave San Mateo County.

On a whim I decided to drive down to Santa Cruz for lunch. It’s a pleasant hour or so on the coast highway and the choice of seafood to be had is great. Why, you can even find the occasional dish which is not deep fried.

At rest.

Too many fries.

Reflections.

Red, white, blue.

End of the Wharf.

Seal.

Even the pelicans are obese here.

All snapped on the Panny G3 with the kit lens.

And this was lunch at Gilbert’s Fire Fish Grill:

A few more from Filoli

Photographs

How to live well.

Bell pull annunciator panel in the butler’s pantry.
Even the guest bathrooms had bell pulls!

Outstanding literary taste – WSC’s oeuvre.

Old growth, reminiscent of the exhaust pipes on the V12 Ferrari Formula 1 312 of the early ’70s.

Worn balustrade.

For the Filoli story click here. All snapped on the Panny G3 with the kit lens.

A friend writes: My family has some experience with the Bourns. Mr. Bourn made his fortune in gold up here at the Empire Mine in Grass Valley. They have a beautiful stone house here (Empire Mine State Historic Park) and my dad was a docent and tended the rose garden. My grandmother was a chef for the Bourns, but worked primarily at their San Francisco home. She was an excellent chef and worked for several notable people. When I was growing up, H. Liebes department store was a major store in downtown S.F. My grandmother was Mrs. Liebes’s personal chef and had a room at the Fairmont Hotel. (Mrs. Liebes lived in a penthouse at the top.)

The Pulgas Temple

Photographs

A curious monument.

Drive a mile or so North of the entrance to the magnificent country estate that is Filoli and your eye will be caught by a curious Greek revival temple of improbable proportions, seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere. The Pulgas Temple is actually nothing more or less than a tribute to the great civil and mechanical engineers who make it possible to deliver drinking water to millions in the Bay Area of San Francisco.

At the entrance.

The temple itself surrounds a large grate which looks like a ventilator for the water flowing below:

The Pulgas Temple.

The whole thing terminates in a large rectangular pool, inviting to swim in, if not permitted:

The pool and cypresses.

The water rushing down the aqueduct to the large reservoir west of the 280 freeway is shown here:

Aqueduct.

And here’s the whole story:

Commemorative plaque.

Worth a side trip should you be visiting Filoli.

All snapped on the iPhone 4S.