[Prudence]

We tried to reprise our "ski-to-sea" of our first Christmas here, where we drove up to Mt. Pinos (huhuhuhuh) to play in the snow and then to the beach in Santa Monica for sunset.

We accomplished none of these things.

We drove up to Mt. Pinos, but it was closed all the way down at the bottom. And not because of an abundance of snow, either, as there was much MUCH less snow than the other two times we've driven up there. Roads were totally bare, no snow pack along the roads, and only some traces of snow in shady areas. So, we enjoyed what we could of the snow pockets, and then decided to head toward the beach.

Rather than head back down the 5/405 to Santa Monica, we decided to take what Google showed as a windy, twisty road through Los Padres National Forest, ending up (hopefully) in Ventura. It was a *spectacular* drive. A variety of interesting rock formations were ours for the viewing. The first part of the drive, from Frazier something or other to the 33, was on a road the would be impassible in more interesting weather.

The road went through a bunch of dips with "flooding" signs indicating what we would see in more exciting weather. We stopped on a straight stretch for the Rat to take a cat nap, and the wind was blowing so hard that the car rocked back and forth. When we continued on, we came to a section with big "PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!" signs. And, indeed, there was a goodly quantity of water flowing across the roadway. Fortunately, it was a ford that Reggie, the ancient Civic, was up to traversing.

But the excitement wasn't through! Once we hit the 33, we first climbed up to some spectacular view of the valley. We felt utterly alone in the world. As we got closer to the coast, the mist rolled in. It was traveling in fast-moving swirls, across totally green hills. It looked like some fantasy movie setting. Or possibly Ireland. We'd drive through a thick cloud of mist that cut visibility to just in front of the car and then pop out into a pocket of clearing full of lush foliage.

As Google promised, we eventually popped out into Ventura. We'd missed sunset, but given the cloud cover we wouldn't have seen much any how. It was sprinkling lightly as we stopped at "Surfer's Point" and set out on a stroll. During the stroll it started to pour, of course, so we were drenched when we made it back to the car. Since it was dark, we picked "swift" over "scenic" for the drive back.

All in all, it was an awesome day.