It's Sunday morning, and I won't be going on a photo expedition to Hollywood today. It rained last night (I should have known. I washed the car on Friday!) and there's a thick cloud cover all over the Southland. Plan B was a companion PhotoPost to the San Gabriel Mountains entry I posted on March 16th. As usual, I am making sure I don't duplicate any of the photos you might have seen on the earlier post or in my PhotoBlog. There are now over 250  high quality photos taken with my new 7.2 megagpixel digital camera in the San Gabriel Mountains folder on my Webshots Gallery. Last time I looked, I still have the #7 spot of over 14,200 members who post California Photos.

So the first photo this morning was taken this morning. It's a cloudscape with the sun trying to shine through the small hole in the clouds, but not quite being able to do so.

Let's go to McDonald's! However, we don't eat there, ever since seeing that Morgan Spurlock documentary "SuperSize Me" in 2004. Acually, I was taking cloudscape photos and got some with signage and liked the shot. This was taken a couple of months ago.

This and the McDonald's photos below were taken on the road to the mountains during the last photo expedition. This is the parking lot of one of the last remaining "original" McDonald's restaurant in Downey. I didn't eat there either, but liked this old GMC delivery van parked in front of the sign, which only credits the chain for "500 million sold." When I was a kid, they kept on changing the amount on the signs as the chain got more and more popular. Now it's just "billions and billions sold".

Here is a shot of the whole restaurant. It's the fourth McDonalds ever built, and there was a big stink a couple of years ago when developers tried to take this puppy down. There is a "museum" in the building on the right. I love the old McDonald's mascot much better than Ronald. (even though Ronald is a clown.) The original iconic McDonald's chef is called Speedee McDonald.

Here we have an "iconic" Baldmike Photo, with clouds and a chain link fence, objects which for some reason keep reappearing in my photos. I love cloudscapes, and my latest video, coincidentally called "Cloudscapes" is rated the #2 starred video of all time on Xanga! This image is looking south on Rosemead Blvd. in East Pasadena.

As I drove up closer and closer to the San Gabriel Mountain range back on March 16th when I took most of these photos, I wanted to snap shots of the snow capped peaks. Of course, the closer I got, the snow capped peaks, larger mountains that are farther away, began to disappear in the distance, covered by the foothills in front of them. Here I snap a dangerous shot of Mt. Baldy while driving down the 210 freeway in the city of Irwindale.

This is a companion shot to the photo of tall palm trees (which I love to show to you guys who don't have palm trees in your states.) I had on the earlier entry. This is looking south, away from the foothills, on Azusa Blvd, which continues north into the San Gabriels.

A reservoir, part of the north fork of the San Gabriel River. As mentioned on the last photopost, I was incredibly lucky to get all these clouds in the area where I was driving, because a rainstorm was bearing down quickly, and in the early evening driving home I had to put the top up before I got wet.

A cloudscape/mountain peaks photo framed by some tree foliage.

Some of the trees alongside the brook I photographed. This area had lots of tourists, but I attempted to get more natural shots of the area than a bunch of guys and gals in shorts walking in the stream.

Another magnificent cloudscape, using one of my filters. (Before anyone mentions it, I know I can edit out the power lines in my photo editor.) This is an unretouched photo.

Lastly, another grim reminder that the foothills and mountains in the Angeles National Forest are subject to wildfires fairly easily. A lot of burned reminders of the past couple of fire seasons dot the landscape as one drives along the mountain trails and roads. Smokey the Bear beams from dozens of roadside signs, and there is no smoking allowed. Only YOU and I can prevent forest fires. Let's hope this year is a lot less fire laden than the past couple, as the weather is getting warmer. (Well, not today, but overall. In fact, as the morning advances, it might be a nice day, if a bit cool, after all.)

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Xangapedia entry comment return update: So far, I've only written 6 comments this morning. (But I'm preparing a post, too!) Yesterday I wrote 56 comments. On Friday I wrote 21 comments. (Some of those weren't comment returns on the Xangapedia post.) I'm on the third (or is the fourth) page of comments, and have listed comment returns for 60 of the comments I received. There are over 260 comments on the entry now, and it's sort of dying down. So I haven't even commented on a third of the entries yet. I'll be busy for most of the next week! I also updated my header image and profile pic. The background are icons from the Window's 3.1 operating system. I thought about where to put the dreamcatcher in the profile pic, and ended up turning a dreamcatcher into a computer icon! (I also slyly put a mouse arrow icon right on the logo for www.allthingsmike.com in the main header so that new readers will think it's theirs and hopefully click on my main website. )MFN/ppf