Autumn in the Sacramento Mountains

Mostly pictures of aspens (Populus tremuloides, of course) turning yellow

View of White Sands from the mountains

White Sands

First, a few caveats and apologies. I seem to have had a lot of crud on my lens when I took these pictures... I wasn't patient enough to entirely clean up the photos. Sorry. Also, I edited the photos on my laptop with the stupid adjustable and shiny monitor, so what looks okay to me may be an artifact of the very specific angle at which it was tilted. And it was rainy and windy so I couldn't change lenses or filters or even take a lot of pictures without risking my precious little machine.

I do have a few more photos from this trip that I may post eventually. The problem with White Sands is that it is really difficult to take pictures creatively... very little to work with. Also, it is hard to focus both the camera and one's own eyes in the face of so little contrast. Still, I think I got a few interesting shots.

On the way, US 70. Should have cleaned the mirror.

I think this grass is Sporobolus airoides, the alkali sacaton

Sometimes a shrub (in this case, a sumac) gets buried in the sand.
It sends up a lot of stems to the surface and the stems put out roots.
When the sand ebbs, the root structure holds the sand together
in this weird island of vegetation

Wet sand at the top of a dune

These are the shelters in a picnic area. I couldn't resist a picture of these
wacky structures that look like they're straight out of The Jetsons