inglorious wanderer

I first hiked the mountain almost 3 years ago with Karlee. For the past years, the mountain has been used for memorial hikes to commemorate the hundreds of firefighters who died during the September 11, 2001 attack on the twin towers of New York City. I expected to see the pile of rocks which I presumed had been piled up by participants of the annual 911 memorial climb.  Where the pile of rocks was, I saw a registry metal box full of notebooks. I don't remember thanking Jesus, Mary and Joseph for having the strength to summit the peak the last time I was at the peak.  I asked a male hiker who came after me at the summit about the pile of rocks. He thought that the rocks must have been washed away by the recent heavy rains. I couldn't imagine how the rocks could have been washed out of the summit just like a pile of twigs.  As soon as the fellow  hiker left the summit, I used my Fugetek for a silhouette shot against the sunset.  I don't remember seeing the trailm...

I finally got inside a greenhouse! The effect? Butterflies are safe and can't fly out of their enclosure to join fellow wildlife creatures  in the Living Desert, a nature preserve which is also a zoo and garden.  The butterflies were grown from an online catalog.  I think they are called blue morphos.These butterflies seem to be used to people and cell phone cameras. This black butterfly reminds me of a Filipino superstition that a black butterfly is soul of a peson who just died.  Seeing butterfly sipping nectar from a flower is something I would not compare to a human act.             

The trail marker at the Glendora Mountain Road is for real: Poop-out Trail!  I have been doing Google search for trails near Glendora and Poop-out Trail seems to be the most interesting one for me.  Poop-out Trail may be another name for Mystic Canyon Trail. It was drizzling the whole time I was at the trail. Solidarity was still so much on my mind so I brought the African Cloth I bought at the Poway Farmer's Market to use as hijab. I thought wearing a hijab on the trail would add drama or some statement to the selfie shots I would be posting at Facebook.  I was alone at the Mystic Canyon Trail summit with only an African cloth turned hijab playing some mystique.  The real mystery to me is why the Mystic Canyon Trail became the Poop-out Trail.