Mill Creek

I recently returned from my annual trek to the Southern California desert. My folks and I met up for a long weekend to view wildflowers (they came from Alaska, I came from the San Francisco Bay Area). My folks grew up in Southern California during the Depression and World War II years, so they are familiar with back roads and great places to visit “old California.” They picked me up from the Ontario Airport, and then we set off to visit a few sites.



Mill Creek Ranger Station in the upper
left quadrant, and the Oak Glen Road

We visited the Hermosa Cemetary in Colton, California, where both my mom’s parents (my grandparents) are buried. We also visited the grave site of Deputy Marshal Morgan Earp (the brother of Wyatt Earp) who was gunned down in Tombstone, Arizona in 1852. We drove by the house where my grandparents raised my mom and aunt; the house has changed, but it is rich with memories of lazy summer vacations, and visits during college and early-marriage.

Pinus coulteri near Mill Creek.

From there we headed up Highway 330 to Mill Creek, a place we have hiked and enjoyed in the past. We checked in at the Mill Creek Ranger Station for information. The man who hired my dad at the Forest Service in 1955, Dr. Ray Taylor, once worked at this station. In Mill Creek we saw Pinus coulteri, the Big-cone Pine. We recalled childhood picnics where we collected pine cones; and later hikes and slingshot practice with my son (their grandson) when he was about 7 or 8. We stopped off at the Los Rios Ranch apple farm in Oak Glen, now a preserve, where I visited while on a women’s retreat in the 1980’s as a young mom, and where my son and I visited with his Kindergarten class in the early 1990s. Lots of wonderful memories!

Decomposing cone - the scales are attached to the center core with fibrous strands.