Thanks LED. We have superb outdoors country around here and we are very fortunate to live within a 30 minute to drive to most of it which makes very easy to get and enjoy the good life every chance we get.

As an aside, I forgot to mention in my original post that behind the picturesque mountains in the first photo is some very, very tough country and its in the same general area where a hiker went missing and was discussed in this recent thread.

Your mention about California turning green in the fall conjures up memories the first time I visited California some years ago. It was in the middle of April and as the airplane made endless circles over LAX and the immediate vicinity due to some problem on the ground, I was awed by how brown most of the bare land looked even from 1000's of feet in the air.