Springing through the Arboretum

Climbing over the radiating low trunk of a white karee.

Tumblrs: Los Angeles County Arboretum

Sunday, we walked the expansive LA Arboretum, which was approaching its spring splendor. As we meandered through its exotic flora, the air was filled with the cat-like mating calls of the garden's peacocks, a legacy of Lucky Baldwin's menagerie.

While the Arboretum is no longer as physically challenging for me as it once was, it more than makes up for it in distance. For the first couple of years, the only way I could see the Arboretum's far-flung gardens was for Keith to push me much of the way in the wheelchair.

That gave us both of a workout, since on the way back, Keith had push me uphill. Now, I have to walk that loooong incline myself (and, at any rate, I've finally returned the wheelchair). And there are certainly other challenges within the Arboretum.

I climbed numerous staircases, not only the steep one beside the waterfall, but also these uneven steps repurposed from broken concrete, And let's not forget my half-vaulting over the snaking, low growing trunk of the white karee (see above).

Still, at the Arboretum we have to make up the relative lack of rough hiking, as I indicated, by walking a good distance. In this case, it was 2.34 miles.

Keith was certainly glad that I was trudging up the hill on my own two feet.

Last year, on my birthday, climbing the staircase in the relocated late-Nineteenth Century train depot. I had to half-pull myself up the steep stairs. It was much easier when I climbed them earlier this year.

Look, Ma, only one hand!

But even that first labored trip up the staircase was a major improvement over our first visit to the Arboretum, in January of 2014.

Along for the ride in my wheelchair, in front of the falls.