It has been a strange winter. After early rainfall soaked us with more than 20 inches of rain in Calabasas (our annual average is about 21 inches), by late December the storm track shifted. Then, in January, we went four weeks without rain.

But those December storms had been enough to cover the San Gabriel Mountains with snow and green up the local hills. And the toyon seem to be having a big year in the Santa Monicas, like the one below on Saddle Peak with Calabasas Peak in the distance.

We’ll see what happens over the next couple of days. Because the National Weather Service just doesn’t make statements like, “THIS STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BRING SOME OF THE LOWEST SNOW LEVELS WE HAVE SEEN IN RECENT TIMES.”

I had hesitated about seeing the movie, wondering whether it might be a bit on the precious side—too much poor little rich boy. But in addition to serving as a master class in acting by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, the story of the friendship between King George VI and his Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue proved to be far more compelling than I expected.

The film humanized a historical figure whom I knew little about. Watching Bertie (Logue’s nickname for George VI who was Prince Albert before becoming king) deal with his stutter as he grew increasingly aware of the demands that the new medium of radio would place on him—especially with the start of World War II—was at times excruciating. And I defy anyone who has ever felt a twinge of anxiety about public speaking to avoid squirming when you see Firth recreate the agony of George VI’s speech at the 1936 Glasgow Exposition.

I caught the film at The Landmark theater, and in one of those serendipitous L.A. experiences, it turned out that director Tom Hooper was on hand for a quick Q&A after the movie. The showing was hardly at prime time (4:15 on a Friday) and the promotional potential of Hooper’s appearance seemed rather limited, so his appearance was a definite surprise.

But there he was for a 20-minute session that revealed the unlikely history of this unlikely movie. Most people know the story of George VI’s older brother, King Edward VII, who famously gave up his throne for the woman he loved, the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. His abdication led to the reluctant ascendancy of George VI.

As Hooper described the film’s genesis, “The story of the younger brother with the stammer who’s saved by the Aussie-failed-Shakespearean-actor-maverick-speech therapist is not well known…The only reason I came to this material is because I happen to be half English, half Australian, and living in London.”

Back in 2007, Hooper’s Australian-born mother was invited by some Aussie friends to attend the reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play at a London fringe theater.

“And this play was called The King’s Speech,” said Hooper. “She almost didn’t go because to be honest it didn’t sound terribly promising. And she had never been invited to a play reading in her life. But thank god she did go. Because she heard the play read, she came home, she rang me up, and said, ‘I think I found your next film.’”

“The moral of the story is listen to your mother.”

Hooper said Geoffrey Rush came to the material in an equally unlikely way. The script was delivered to his Melbourne home by a messenger who worked for the same theater company and who had previously brought a package to Rush’s address.

The script arrived in a brown paper envelope with a simple note, and, as Hooper said, “Amazingly, he did not throw it in the bin.” Rush read it, contacted his agent, and said he wanted to do the work as a movie not as a stage play.

There would be other surprises too. Hooper said that nine weeks before shooting was scheduled to begin, he met Lionel Logue’s grandson—who lived just ten minutes away. The grandson gave Hooper a copy of a diary that Logue kept during his years working with the king. The diary had never been seen by royal biographers, historians, or members of the royal family.

“We set about furiously rewriting based on this treasure trove of information,” said Hooper. “We discovered more about Lionel Logue nine weeks before filming than we ever knew before from all of the history books.”

Among the things that Hooper discovered was that the famous shot of the king seated in full uniform as he delivered his speech announcing Britain’s entry into World War II had been a complete fabrication. Instead, to keep George VI calm, Logue set up what Hooper called “this odd little back room” where the king delivered the radio address—with his tie and jacket off. (Click here to listen to the original speech.)

For all of the history that the movie captures, Hooper resists the idea of it as a period piece because “to me it’s still very present. Because I don’t have a grandfather as a result of the war.”

Hooper’s grandfather was a 30-year-old bomber navigator. He was on the 42^nd of a group of 42 missions when his plane was hit and crippled by enemy fire over Germany. While flying over the English Channel, said Hooper, “they asked permission to land at the first available airstrip. And in that rather terrible bureaucratic English way they were told, ‘No you have to go back to your home base.’ They crashed between the coast and their home base. So it was a slightly unnecessary death.”

Hooper dedicated The King’s Speech to his grandfather.

Purely from a statistical perspective, the Dodgers have had worse years than they did in 2010. But there’s little question that this year was a particularly bitter and ugly one—mainly because of the bitterness and ugliness of Frank and Jamie McCourt‘s divorce trial.

The Giants victory (and with one of the most appealingly eccentric championship teams in recent memory in any sport) only heightens the sense of collapse that hangs over the Dodgers. And whatever the team’s on-the-field failures may have been, those were nothing compared to the perception that, as an institution, the Dodgers have lost their way.

O’Malley to Murdoch to Frank has been no Tinker to Evers to Chance.

For Peter O’Malley to come out and criticize the McCourts earlier this fall seems at best disingenuous considering that he was the one who put the team’s institutional change into motion by selling to Fox back in the 1990s. So much for protecting the family legacy. I was also surprised at how short the memories of fans can be. Many of them rallied around O’Malley and hailed him as the person to restore the Dodgers to their former glory following his anti-McCourt fatwa.

While I am a Cubs and White Sox fan (yes, it’s possible), the Dodgers have also always been a part of my baseball DNA. The first baseball game that I can ever remember going to was when I was four. We saw the Dodgers play the Reds in August 1964. It was a day game and we sat way up in the top deck behind home plate. And, at least in my memory, Don Drysdale pitched that afternoon.

When it comes to the Dodgers, I’m a 1960s classicist. My parents told me stories of seeing Jackie Robinson play at Wrigley Field but I missed the Brooklyn era. The Dodgers are forever fixed in my mind along with Disneyland, Marineland, and that vacation. For me they are Koufax, Drysdale, Maury Wills, and Wes Parker and not the Lasorda-Garvey teams of the 1970s.

The one enduring tie through all of the ownership tumult of recent years is Dodger Stadium. Much as I would love to see the McCourts sell the team, I do give them credit for making an effort—so far—to keep the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine. Sure, there are far too many ads and the video sign running along the loge level is distracting. But Dodger Stadium, amazingly for a ballpark that I still think of as the epitome of modernity that it was in the 1960s, is now the third oldest in major league baseball.

The L.A. traffic gods were kind to me this season and I invariably arrived at games early. That gave me the opportunity to explore Dodger Stadium more than I have in recent years. I did what I could with the limited capabilities of my iPhone camera and spent a lot of time up on the top deck taking in the views of the city. The perspective from Dodger Stadium is maybe the best in L.A. It ranges from panoramas of the San Gabriels to the railyards east of downtown and back north to Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign.

But what I find most striking is the unmistakable Mid-Century Modern quality of Dodger Stadium. With its eccentric angles and modern materials, it’s as Googie as Pann’s, as optimistic and futuristic as the Cinerama Dome.  And for all of the changes since that vacation, it is the Southern California that remains in my imagination from the summer of 1964.

I can remember a couple of Octobers when quick intense storms hit the area but no other year when we’ve experienced such consistent early rain. This is actually the second time in three weeks when there have been three consecutive rain days.

I went out yesterday on the Stunt High Trail and hiked down through the forest of live oaks and sycamores along the creek before reaching the chaparral stands of Cold Creek Valley Preserve. An intense little storm cell quickly moved through and I almost turned around when the lightning appeared to be getting close as big volleys of thunder bounced around the valley.

Usually at this time of year, the preserve is still pretty scruffy and dry. But the first grasses are coming in and the chaparral plants, most notably the buckwheat, are sprouting with the high greens of the early rainy season. Mixed in are stands of red shank, which are still showing off the rust tones that are typical of late summer and fall when their stems die off. The red shank at Cold Creek is noteworthy because the valley sits at around 1,100 feet and the plant is more typically found at over 2,000 feet in the Santa Monicas.

When you first look at chaparral, it can appear monochromatic and undifferentiated. But with this blending of the dry and rainy seasons, the mix of greens and the accent of the red shank help to reveal just what a complex plant community it truly is.

The end of summer in Southern California hardly signifies the arrival of cooler conditions. Typically there’s another two months of hot weather (and increased fire danger) before the rains start coming. Assuming they come. Forecasts are calling for La Nina conditions this winter, which means below average rainfall in Southern California and the Southwest.

Even in this mild year, fall began and we immediately went into a heat wave with temperatures rising into the low 100s around Calabasas. And a red-flag fire alert. So I’m thankful that I had the chance to get out and comfortably explore the mountains in summer. Granted, with no real rain since April, things were rather crispy. But there was plenty of activity. On recent hikes, I spotted two skunks, alligator lizards, a tarantula, a coyote pup, and Mariel Hemingway on a mountain bike. Her beaming assessment upon watching day fade into night from atop a rise?  ”It’s just gorgeous.”

Then there was this guy, a big old bull of a rattlesnake with what by my count is 12 rattles. He’s gorgeous too by the way.

Almost imperceptibly, wisps of cool air and moisture mix with the dry heat of Big Sur’s interior. Ferns and patches of moss appear along the road and beyond the crest, the view opens to Mill Creek Canyon and the Pacific. The best days, oddly enough, are not the clearest. What you want here is fog.

From nearly 3,000 feet, the road looks down on a blanket of white that covers the ocean to the horizon. Within the canyon, fog advances and retreats, reaching into gaps and reducing huge redwoods to silhouettes before the trees vanish entirely.

If you’ve been wondering why you came into Big Sur—not via world-famous Highway 1, but along a twisting road through Los Padres National Forest that begins more than 20 miles inland on an Army base—the view of the fog moving into the canyon is the answer. It’s a remarkable atmospheric dance, as the hot air of the Salinas Valley draws the fog in. And the fog is both vast and vulnerable. It creeps in cautiously, with tendril-like wisps testing to see if it is safe to continue farther up canyon. There are other dances too. Turkey vultures wheel against the grasslands, then let thermals carry them skyward before the birds disappear into the fog, only to reappear above it. There’s virtually no wind, just the steady sound of Mill Creek and the occasional insistent calls of jays to break an eerie quiet.

At a pullout looking down into the canyon, photographer Tom Gamache and I noticed a Polaroid picture that someone had left behind on a boulder.

While I know a number of photographers are using Polaroid cameras as an artistic tool, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw anyone else using one of the cameras out in the field—certainly not in this era when we’re all tricked out with digital cameras, and caught up in a mine-is-bigger-than-yours arms race of megapixels and features. Whoever took the picture seemed to have realized that there’s really no way to bring home this scene, except maybe somewhere in your soul.

In a reversal of the vultures’ flight, as Nacimiento-Fergusson nears the ocean, you descend into the fog, then come out again from underneath it. Driving north along the coast, the views of mountains plunging to the sea change around every bend, and with the fog’s ebb and flow.

It’s a play of landscape, ocean, and sky like nowhere else in the world. Yes, it’s impossible to capture: the sound, the wind, and that sweet kiss of mist. The fog forever reconjures Big Sur and every moment and view seem remarkably new. So we ignored the lesson of that Polaroid. And for three days, up and down this coast in Monterey County, we kept trying to bring Big Sur home with us.

Two years after the enormous Basin Complex wildfire, entire slopes of the Santa Lucias in Los Padres National Forest were covered by stands of what appeared to be deer weed, with sticky monkey flower mixed in. Both inland and coastal slopes featured huge displays that colored peaks right to the ridgeline.

Coastal terraces also had major ongoing blooms, with dense carpets of gold, especially up at Garrapata State Park.

The Santa Monica Mountains: Range On The Edge received an excellent review from the prominent photographic magazine, which  focused on Tom’s memorable images. Reviewer Jim Cornfield described the book as “a visual and literary tribute to an important, but little known feature of this gigantic sprawl of a city. Range On The Edge gives us a rare and beautiful photographic portrait, and historical profile of the rural Santa Monica Mountains.” Here’s one of my favorite shots from the book, a sycamore along Malibu Creek in an early morning fog..

Tim was profiled in the issue with a special focus on the book we worked on last year, Along The Water’s Edge. I’m trying to find the online link to the article but the text is available Tim’s website. And here’s a shot from the book.

As has so often been the case in recent years, scandal came with it as Floyd Landis, the Dwight Schrute of cycling, confessed to doping and implicated just about everyone in the sport—most notably Lance Armstrong. The next day Armstrong crashed and he was out of the race.

My photog friend co-author Tom Gamache and I decided to bypass road closures, shuttle buses, and the more commercialized finish line area and headed for the corner of Mulholland Highway and Cornell Road. There was a small hill here and the riders would turn onto Mulholland, so it had promise.

This is one of the more storied intersections in the Santa Monicas, with the National Park Service’s Paramount Ranch on one corner and Reagan Ranch (as in Ronald Reagan) on another.

Still used for filming today, Paramount Ranch has a long history as a movie location that dates back to 1927. The versatility of the Santa Monicas for filmmakers is apparent when you consider that movies with such varied locales as Beau Geste (North Africa), Wells Fargo (San Francisco), and The Adventures of Marco Polo (13^th Century China) were all shot at Paramount Ranch (for a complete list of the ranch’s movies, go here). Reagan bought his 290-acre property in 1951 for $65,000 and it was while he lived here that he first ran for public office: a seat on the board of the Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District.

With billowing clouds and the mountains transitioning from the greens of winter and spring to summer golds, it was certainly an ideal day to stand around and wait for the riders, who would end up doing four 21-mile circuits through the Santa Monicas. CHP motorcycle cops and other vehicles heralded the imminent arrival of the riders. A seven-man breakaway, which held together for most of the race, came in ahead of the peloton and included former Armstrong teammate George Hincapie. He eventually finished second in the stage (he’s third from the right in the picture at the top). And then they were gone, bound for the climb up Mulholland. What was remarkable was how fast and effortlessly they took the hill where we waiting.

With the circuits taking about 45 minutes, Tom and I decided to go on a hike into Reagan Ranch, and headed up a onetime road through a canopy of chaparral alive with blossoms and countless checkerspots and other butterflies feeding from the flowers. As we neared the top of our hike, we could hear cowbells and cheers as the riders returned to the corner on their second circuit.

By the time we got back down, we only had a short wait before the riders raced through along Cornell Road. Again, the speed was remarkable but we did catch a glimpse of the leader and eventual winner Michael Rogers just ahead of third-place finisher Levi Leipheimer.

Rogers later called the route through the Santa Monicas “a super-hard course.” And announcer Phil Liggett said, “This has been a pure professional bike rider’s circuit. Undulating, tough but not really favoring any particular type of cyclist.  Except a very strong one.”

Not bad for a mountain range where the highest peak is just over 3,000 feet.