we just got back from a trip to california to look at colleges for our daughter eva. this involved the laborious duty of driving a convertible ford mustang down highway 1 from san francisco through big sur to los angeles. the air occasionally smelled like the pacific ocean. occasionally like mediterranean herbs. and quite often like eucalyptus. the mother lode pictured above was discovered on a crowded trail, where our family stopped traffic repeatedly to pick up pocketfuls of my favorite seed pod in the world. i wish you could smell my kitchen right now. it smells like california.

eucalyptus leaves and seeds

big sur, california