Los Angeles, August

Bean, Dots & I meandered along the lookout path, at Laurel Pass and Mulholland yesterday just before noon. The heat has dissipated a little, not entirely, but enough to make it just bearable to be outside at that time. The path is now baked clay lined with dessicated twigs and grasses, but the oak trees are still dark green and cast cooler shadows. Rather like the air-conditioned Tokyo department stores in the summertime, you can run from tree to tree for a blast of cool air, before venturing back out into the dry heat. As I struggled with my camera, the dalmatian jumped up onto the trunk of this tree, which grows out of the ground diagonally and gazed photogenically northwest. There was a fire yesterday on the Cajon Pass, where we'd driven only a few days before on the way to Madera. It's not difficult to imagine a spark setting off something huge at this time of the year; the heat is incessant and still and heavy with brown smog that gets stuck in your nose and chest as you breathe it in.