Scent memory – have you ever had one?

Yesterday, my friend Sue @ I Need Mom, did her weekly tablescape post and it included a couple of photos of some fresh lemons she had received in the mail from another blogger. We all know that our brain can recall memories associated with certain scents, but have you ever seen a photo that brought the memory of a scent on so strongly, that in turn, it evoked the associated memory? That's exactly what happened to me when I saw this photo on Sue's blog…

Ahhh…lemons — fresh, crisp and zesty. I love the scent of lemons! I'll get back that in a minute.

Please note that all the photos in today's post can be enlarged by clicking on them, I knew some of my SoCal friends would want a closer look at some of these amazing aerial shots.

For a time I lived in the Santa Monica Mountains, on the backside of the Hollywood Hills, in the wonderful town of Studio City. This map shows you the range of the Santa Monica Mountains and the "X" marks the spot where I lived…

The mountains run along the coast of the Pacific Ocean in California. They extend from Point Mugu in Ventura County to the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles County (approx. 40 miles). On the southern end they separate the San Fernando Valley (think "Vally girls" or "Vals" from the 80s and 90s) from cities like Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

That's the area I lived, in a house that was so me; I loved every inch of it and only left when my mother became ill in Florida and I moved to be closer to her. I lived just off Ventura Boulevard, the "Melrose" of the Valley. 

viz

This where you want to be to see Universal Studios, great boutiques and fabulous restaurants.

Oh, and you're more than likely to run across many celebrities — look, don't touch! 

I could go on and on about that house, but the part that is relevant to this post is the lemon trees.

Because the backyard was the mountain, it had been layered into four terraces, each connected by steep cement stairs. The top terrace was planted with fruit trees, including three very large lemon trees. Each flat part of the "yards"  was separated by the slope of the mountain and it was planted with creeping thyme. Got the picture in your head? Okay, now I'll get to the point.

Living in the Santa Monica Mountains, the wind current would bring a cool ocean breeze into my open windows. When Spring arrived and the lemon trees would start to blossom, the breeze would pick up their scent and then swoop down over the rosemary and my house became an aromatherapy haven!

I wanted to show you some pics of the mountains and when I started searching I found two websites that provided me with incredible aerial shots from one end to the other. You can find those sites here and here.

This first one is of the Hollywood Hills, remember I lived on the opposite side of them…

From the top of the side I lived on you could look out over the Hollywood Hills

and see downtown Los Angeles in the distance…

What a view!

BUT, the view gets better when you travel north over the Santa Monica Mountains!

The closest beach to my house was Santa Monica. Here's a pic of the Santa Monica Pier, looking back towards the mountains…

Fun beach, but very crowded! I prefer the more northern beaches in this region. There are numerous ways to get there. From Santa Monica, you can drive along PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and just take a look at how close you get to drive to the ocean…

The most scenic drive to get to the beaches from The Valley is taking one of the canyons  — either Malibu or Topanga. Two of my girlfriends, who are both avid readers of this blog (but don't leave comments), can easily take Topanga Canyon to reach the beach. Marice lives right on Topanga Canyon Blvd. and Cheryl lives just blocks from it. Here's a example of what you'll see…

And here's what you'll see on the other end…

From land to sea…

or from sea to land…

there's no better place, I'd rather be!

I LOVE the coast of California. I've mentioned before that my husband and I drove the whole coast from L.A. and up into Oregon for our honeymoon. I've driven this coast many, many times and I never tire of the view…

The Pacific Ocean

Malibu Point and Surfrider Beach

As most of you know, my family had a place at Paradise Cove in Malibu when I was growing up and this is where I spent most weekends and summers. I wrote this in a post from 2009, "We had a modest home in the San Fernando Valley, so that we could also have a weekend/summer getaway at Paradise Cove in Malibu. The Cove was strictly a trailer park at that time and our neighbors included Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Edgar Buchanan and Frank Cady (both of Petticoat Junction) and many friends. We bought our trailer from Lana Turner, better known as the Sweater Girl in those days. By the time we located to The Cove, we were already known as The Lazy G's from our many years of beach camping." I have many, many wonderful memories of our time spent in Malibu.

Paradis Cove at low tide — the beach of my youth…

You're probably wondering how I got from lemons to beaches in this post. Well, the lemons sparked the memory of my house in the Santa Monica Mountains and the ocean breeze I spoke of led me to the beaches that lie in their region. That's just how my brain works, one thing leads me to another. So, I have Sue to thank for filling my day with so many wonderful memories — thanks Sue!

I can't leave without showing you the aerial photos I found of those beaches I grew up on…

Point Dume

Point Dume Cove and Paradise Cove

The second cove on the right in the photo is Paradise Cove. Here's a close-up from Google Earth, I added a red dotted line from PCH, down Paradise Cove Road, right to where our trailer was located… 

The park hasn't grown that much in size since the forty-odd years ago that I lived there. Down on the beach there to the right was the house where they filmed Marcus Welby M.D., that was the house that the good doctor lived in on the show. They also filmed the opening segment for The Monkees on the beach and Rockford Files was another show that used my beach for location shots. Yeah, Hollywood loved us and we loved them!

We lived in Malibu before it was incorporated into a city in 1991 and the boundaries grew. When we lived there it was just…

"27 Miles of Scenic Beauty"

Oh, if you're wondering what Paradise Cove is like today, here's an excerpt from this month's issue of Vanity Fair, "The hippest neighborhood in Malibu right now is … a trailer park? Yes, say the likes of Minnie Driver, Pamela Anderson, and Matthew McConaughey. In Paradise Cove, whose pioneers included director Sam Peckinpah and Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler, Vanessa Grigoriadis explores the surfboard-and-shirtless bohemian charms—not to mention those trailers, with their marble floors, Italian-granite countertops, and Sub-Zero appliances—which have sent the price of a tricked-out double-wide into the millions." You can read the entire article here.

Isn't it amazing what a simple photo of lemons on someone's blog can lead to? 

I started working on this post yesterday (despite the fact that I said I was going to be doing simpler posts while I'm working on goodies for Jane's Art at Home Show) and then I woke up to the news this morning about the 8.9 earthquake in Japan and the impending tsunami that is expected to hit the California coastline in the next few hours. The advisory starts just north of the area I wrote about today, but it is under a tsunami warning. Also included in the warning area is Redondo Beach, where my son lives. As I write this, a newscaster from Newport Beach (an hour south of my son) is reporting that they've closed down all the beaches, harbors and marinas. They are not expecting any major damage, but are concerned about the surge and have told people not to go near the water. The threat is worse up in Northern California and officials have closed down Highway 1. PCH is a section of Highway 1, in Southern California. You can bet that I will be glued to the television today to see the effect on the coastline that I love so much. My heart and thoughts today are with the people of Japan for the damage the quake caused and to those who lost loved ones. My heart and thoughts are also with those in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California who are taking precautions against the tsunami — please be safe and listen to what the officials are saying — don't go near the water! 

Note for my California friends: Remember that house next door to me whose backyard was always covered in Morning Glories? Well, when I was researching this post I came across the realtors listing and discovered they completely remodeled it and it sold last August for $615,000. Two bedroom, 1.5 baths, only 1,158 sq. ft. and it sold for more than 1/2 a mil! You have to see what they did to it though here, it's gorgeous!