A century plant.

A bit eerie Sunday, driving through the clouds in the Angeles National Forest, through some of the burn areas of 2009. The hills were fresh with new green growth -- gloriously so -- but amid the ground-level new life there still were blackened evergreen trees and other scorched trees and shrubs for many miles, including formerly stately looking fir with giant burned-black pinecones still attached to the upper branches. Waiting to fall and germinate, probably. At a certain higher elevation, somewhere above 5000, the evergreens became green again. And then, a short while later, we were above the cloudline, in bright sunshine and snow, with clear blue skies. A few hours later it was time to come back down again, back to the other side. The clouds were still there, as if they'd been held in place by the canyons. The light seemed the same, too.