The View from Here: Early Spring in Pasadena

I came back from chilly Memphis on Monday to a warm and blooming Pasadena. These past few days have been filled with the sweet scent of trumpet flowers and warm (okay, hot!) sunshine. I’ve never been one to complain about early spring, and I think I’m just about ready to switch from our winter comforter to our summer one. Here are a few shots of this early spring from the top of the library at Caltech. I actually took these the day before I left town, and I love that it was a bit of a blue and foggy day. That awesome-looking white building is the auditorium, framed by the mighty San Gabriel Mountains.

This is the same library from which they drop pumpkins filled with liquid nitrogen on Halloween. I love living in science town.

When we first moved here I was taken with how different these mountains are than the ones I had grown so fond of in the Bay area, jutting up like biscotti in the smooth coffee of the Bay. The climate here is so different that our mountains are more bare than green, but I am coming to love them too, and each day I find myself enjoying living in their shadow just a little bit more. Happy early spring to you, wherever you may be.