Four!

Set out for this morning's walk and, when I reached the turnaround point at 1.5 miles, it was such a beautiful day that I felt compelled to go the extra (half) mile. So I did.

There are some pretty unusual aspects to this little part of the world. First, despite the best efforts of William Mulholland back in the day and all the idiots in local government now, this is still a desert (and a relatively fragile one, at that) running right down to the the water's edge. Many of the artifacts that "define" SoCal -- such as palm trees -- were imported. Native vegetation tends toward the kind of scrubby, nasty stuff you see in dry, hostile environments.

From my perspective, knowing that water is indeed available as needed, there is a magic to those rare days when you can feel the desert's influence in the relentless sunshine and in the weight of the air, take in its dusty odor -- it's not all man-made pollution, no matter what the greens tell you -- and almost taste a unique tang of ocean salt and desert sand.

With the temperature up close to 75 and a brisk walking pace, I managed to work up a good sweat. Damn near perfect, I'd say.

Oh, yes. I did take a couple of photos, but the Blogspot photo server is being "difficult" so I'll put 'em up later.