We are now in an area North of LA which could best be described as cowboy country. Staying on a ranch which a has loads of goats, sheep, ducks, birds, horses and a camel called Albert.

So we’ve got away from it all when we’d already got away from it all in LA. ‘It all’ is perhaps everyday life, or a change is scene, so we are changing scene and scenery yet again. This area is dry and stunning, a victim of fires but where we are was not itself affected, just surrounded by them. It’s a flat area of land in the bottom of the valley and is at 3500 feet. Air is pure, and the actual building we are staying in is called the cowboy house. Tall bed, the tallest I’ve seen or slept in is so high off the ground a fall from bed might break a limb.

No mains services come here in any form, it all runs on solar power and generators, water from a deep spring. The guy who owns it wanted to make the area a baseball camp for kids, but has had trouble getting the authorities to allow him. We hope he manages to get there in the end. He has been the most accommodating host to us. And when it gets dark, it is dark. No light pollution up here.

A long hike, longer than expected due to our own self inflicted navigational errors,outside the camp today and we saw some super scenery, and the only sound was the birds. No traffic noise, a rarity in California, and in the UK of course.