visioneer: no trespassing

if you think for one moment that i would obey this directive, then you don't know me. intrepid photographer. the hidden treasures on a late summer afternoon were pretty cool and quite worth trespassing.

urban CORN! lots of fruit trees, cactus, all in a city setting.

city? not quite.

welcome to the wine ghetto on california's central coast.

i have always loved that contradiction in terms - contradiction in california at least - of "wine" and "ghetto." sure "ghettoes" have winos, but here, we are talking about a kind of non-glamorous place where some very fine, fine wine is made. no touristy visiting the vineyard for tastings or anything like that...

yeah, california has napa for that. but i always liked sonoma better.

and those of us who hail from further south on the central coast have our own secret vineyards and vintners. from santa cruz all the way down to santa barbara, we have the same coastal fog, we have the same temperate climes (except for paso robles, with excellent wine yet hot hot heat), we have a few different grapes and different soil. we have lots of oak down here and our chardonnay is sublime. we have tons of fruit trees, making our syrah sublime, too (sorry, none of that aussie "shiraz" pronunciation around here, ok? petite syrah. c'est un mot grenouilleuse. froggie. french word). we have a marked LACK of pretension, however. no hard-to-get-into restaurants. nothing like that. yet.

no, it would not be california without palm trees.
i loved that you couldn't tell what year it was based on the cars!

i like old cars. they are quite photogenic. later, walking up the road, i spied this big ugly RV with a row of what appeared to be corn. i'm not sure if it is corn, or just looks like corn, but i'm calling it corn!

um... i'm not sure if this qualifies for the "ghetto" part of "wine ghetto." but its doing a good job of fulfilling a certain.... class aspect? or novelty. i saw plenty of this corn stuff, though! so much that it made me grab the camera.

this is an example of what i spied through a hole in the fence next to the house pictured above. cactus and corn! we are in the southwest, its true...as far west as the actual coastline.

i love the way the iron bar across the top of their wooden fence has rusted. the color is gorgeous. and the fence, with its charcoal grey wood, its painted white and painted red wood panels all serve to highlight the green of the cactus.

who knows if the residents of this odd place realize what a photogenic home they have.