Dispatch #47 - Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument

At the edge of desert season. Plus my first peninsular bighorn sheep sighting.

Good morning from Los Angeles, where the jacarandas lining Avenue 53 are painting the streets in purple. Their trumpet-shaped blooms have arrived nearly a month early this year.

They fall at the slightest breeze. I tilt my tongue toward them as they drop, the way I once did snowflakes growing up in Michigan — cold water then, something faintly sweet now…