Today my wife and I had a wonderful walk in the Santa Cruz Mountains foothills in Cupertino. The place is called the Fremont Older Preserve, and it's beautiful. We drove up a narrow, winding road, passing some amazingly large mansions. The higher we went, the bigger the mansions got!
The preserve is named after Fremont Older, a newspaper editor who fought against corruption in government, capital punishment and was an advocate for prison reform in the early 20th century. He and his wife bought the land in 1912, and after their deaths, another newspaperman leased the land and rebuilt the house. It is now on the National Register of Historic buildings.
We didn't see the house, but we saw beautiful green landscapes flowing all around us. The walk into the preserve is quite steep, so we were breathless by the time we got to Hunter's Point where we had a stunning bird's-eye view of South Bay. It was bright and sunny with a cool breeze. We sat on the bench that was dedicated to Fremont Older. The birds were plentiful in the lower elevations where there were more trees, and we came up with only a possible ID of a California towhee since we didn't have binoculars. Next time! It was a great morning.
As for photography, I had my phone with me, so that’s what I used for photos. When out on a walk, hike or bike ride, photos are more than adequate for shooting images from landscapes to closeups. I’d bring my bigger camera kit if I was looking to create something specific, but the phone camera makes it easy not only to scout locations and test ideas, but to create good images in their own right. Here are a few from our walk.