After a cold, stormy night, Ken ran out to load the sleigh and returned to report the beautiful snow covered mountains! Before two hours had passed when we left to head back up the coast, the surrounding mountains were cloud covered, but in a way we'd never seen them! Everywhere, it was a pristine, blue-sky day, but the mountains looked like they'd been engulfed by a forest fire with billowing smoke!
We chose a slightly longer route to take us out toward the mountain range, and then alongside it to the coast before the freeway turned north. I couldn't stop taking photos as it was such an exceptional weather phenomenon! Where there were breaks in the clouds, we could see the amazing snow-covered mountains!
We arrived and had a lovely Christmas Eve with the grandkids before coming to a motel in town for the night. It would be hard to explain to the boys how Santa came down the chimney, ate the cookies and filled the stockings while we slept through it all on the living-room sofa bed!
We'll all come back to Grandma & Papa's house on Monday, and if this weather holds, I'll have some gorgeous photos of our local White-Christmas Gift!
Another WOW!! What a fantastic sight!! Sounds like you had a great journey with wonderful vistas like this!! Enjoy your family day - it's aways so lovely when there are small children! Noisy but lovely!! LOL!! Fav for this fabulous cloud scene!!
Wow -- I've not seen anything like that -- it does look like smoke! I hope you had a great day today with friends and family. BTW, thanks for the link re recorder!
@pamknowler The traffic was light all the way, and the views were beyond beautiful! Now, at the end of Christmas Day, the boys went to bed and we're back at the motel. I never saw all of yesterday's photos, and now Ken and I had 2 cameras going today, so imagine the total! It was a wonderful day... The boys were beautifully behaved and everyone had a super good time! We'll have to touch base soon to compare notes!
@summerfield Ken and I hope you had a wonderful day! As you read above to Pam, the boys were respectfully appreciative and played together beautifully all day! That was gift enough for this grandma! It was all a delight! @petaqui We did, we did, thank you! The wonderment of little boys who still believe in Santa makes for knowing smiles and a wink to one another over some of the delightful comments! I hope your day was exceptional as well! @taffy It was 100% just family...we only saw one other person on campus who came to empty all the Christmas wrapping paper in the bin across the road! I photographed the crescent moon as the sky got light and hawks soaring overhead. And oh yes, the rest of the pictures that killed two batteries were pretty much of the boys! Do you and Jim celebrate Hanukkah? Will you have anyone else coming down to join you? I'm sure Junko & Bill hated to leave as much as you hated to see them go!
@elatedpixie Wow! You certainly ARE elated ;) I looked though my long string of photos...the crazy cloud cover was visible from Fountain Valley and was looking huge like this up around Diamond Bar. Where it was clear enough for a peek at the mountains, the signs show Covina and Glendora, if you know those areas. It was pretty spectacular and worth the extra 1/2 hour driving up to Carpinteria!
@summerfield Ken and I hope you had a wonderful day! As you read above to Pam, the boys were respectfully appreciative and played together beautifully all day! That was gift enough for this grandma! It was all a delight!
@petaqui We did, we did, thank you! The wonderment of little boys who still believe in Santa makes for knowing smiles and a wink to one another over some of the delightful comments! I hope your day was exceptional as well!
@taffy It was 100% just family...we only saw one other person on campus who came to empty all the Christmas wrapping paper in the bin across the road! I photographed the crescent moon as the sky got light and hawks soaring overhead. And oh yes, the rest of the pictures that killed two batteries were pretty much of the boys! Do you and Jim celebrate Hanukkah? Will you have anyone else coming down to join you? I'm sure Junko & Bill hated to leave as much as you hated to see them go!