ondor Project - Eben Mcmillan 22 may-1963 Ian Came to my house at 4:00 A.m., loaded his camp gear and equipment into my pickup truck and we started for Fillmore, California, via Blackwell's Corner - under a low overcast and cool. No rain had fallen in enough quantity to save the west side of the San Joaguin Valley that now is dry and desertlike. The Cuyama Valley is much of the same, at least along the road from Maricopa to Ventura - signs of rainfall and green vegetation commenced to show as we entered the Sespe river drainage, arrived in Fillmore at 7:30 A.m. Still thick overcast and cool, met Jack Gains at 8:00 A.m. at his home - Loaded our cameras - binoculars, scope and lunches into his Forest Service pickup truck and accompanied him up Pole Creek, thence on top of ridge that leads to Hopper Mountain - Past Hopper Mountain to a spot where the road passes to the west of the point where Carl Koford had his lookout shack where we stopped to await the lifting of the fog that hung in Hopper Canyon and along the top of the ridges. Lush vegetative growth covered all productive soils from the time we left Fillmore - Jack Gains remarked that this spring being the greatest growth he had noted since coming to Fillmore, in 1958. While awaiting the lifting of the fogs - we hiked up the roadway a quarter mile only to find visibility no better so we spent most of the day sitting in Mr. Gains pickup talking. Jack Gains gave us a complete [illegible] of his life history - Born in Texas, his family moved to Oklahoma in his first year of life.