Monday April 9 - Thursday,
April 19, 2012
The balance of the week after
Easter included visits with my Aunt Bonnie, cousin Dee and her
husband Trevor at my brother's for dinner, a trip to PetCo Park for a
one-run win late in the game by the San Diego Padres against the
Arizona Diamondbacks, and too much time dealing with unauthorized
withdrawals from one of my bank accounts. The fraud took time every
day for a week dealing with the various agencies and online
paperwork, including notaries. Not my idea of a vacation.
By Thursday, my brother's
birthday and Friday, I was still dealing with the fraud/identity
theft (only a minor and perhaps accidental incursion on my funds and
ID) while taking breaks to visit with friends. When I was not using
the laptop, Duffy was busy with business bookkeeping, and taking bike
rides around the campground and from Santee to El Cajon.
On Friday, April 13, Duffy and
I spent three wonderful hours visiting with our friend Tina (nee
Christina Shriver). [I fear we wore you out, Tina, and I hope I did
not give you the cold that began expressing itself the following
Saturday morning.] I ask anyone keeping up with our journey via this
blog to keep Tina in your prayers. She is still undiagnosed, as some
of the scariest possibilities have been ruled out and resulted
negative in tests. [Tina, we love you like family. We are waiting
for the jubilant report and healing of your body that you long for.
Hugs, friend.]
Friday evening we joined Skip
and Susan and friends Tom and Cathy at their weekly hangout for
dinner, and Mike and Mona who joined us all at Por Favor Mexican
Restaurant in El Cajon. It is always good to see these old and dear
friends, and to catch up on what's been going on over the past year.
As usual, we eat way too much.
On Saturday, I lay low, because
of the cold I was catching. I blame it on the change in weather from
sunny, warm days to a low pressure system with gray skies and
one-half-inch of rain on Saturday. Or to all the pollen and syrupy
scents saturating the air. More than an inch of rain is a lot of
precipitation all at once in San Diego. My response was to ply
myself with every remedy I had at hand. I won't go into details,
except to say the regimen added a bit of time onto my normal daily
routine. Now, many of you know Duffy spends a good deal of time
waiting for me. I try, I really do. So, during this time whenever I
was ready on time, it was noteworthy. I hope Duffy made mental or
calendar notes of my victories.
On
Sunday, the family celebrated my brother's 68th
birthday and our niece's seventh birthday, which fall just six days
apart. It was fun to be part of the family on this occasion;
however, being with Reagan for her birthday party caused me to miss
even more not being present for Ahna's birthday party in March. It
won't be long now, Ahna, and we will be home to give you that big
birthday, bear hug. Love you, Sweet Pea.
Monday brought with it clearing
skies – a promise of a brighter tomorrow for the pre-scheduled
whale watch on Tuesday with Skip and Susan. Duffy spent some time
with friend Mike while I had lunch out with Skip and Susan, and our
Aunt Bonnie, our mother's sister. I look forward to the little bit
of time I get to spend with Bonnie. As my favorite aunt, and the one
I grew up sharing special occasions and making memories with, she is
always on my list of must-see people when in San Diego area.
Tuesday morning broke sunny and
warm. Did we feel lucky?! The whale watch, on a sport fishing boat
called the Eclipse which takes sports fisher-men and -women out for
Tuna from San Diego Bay during the summer months, started out not
looking too promising. Fog covered the bay and the ocean for most of
the morning, and we saw little but harbor seals and sea lions, and
many fast-moving sea birds that we could not name. The trip lasted
eight hours, and by day's end, we had seen these mammals, birds, and
more on the Mexican Los Coronados Islands about 15-miles south of San
Diego.
On these rocky outcroppings, we
saw nesting Cormorants and Brown Pelicans, Fulmars, Shearwaters, and
a bird we had looked for all across the gulf coast – the Black
Oystercatcher. Wow! Finally! Another new bird for our life list!
These birds are bigger than we thought they would be, with a very
long and sturdy, bright, nearly fluorescent, orange-colored bill used
for breaking open oyster shells. Such gratification!
We knew we were a bit late for
the Gray Whale migration from Mexican lagoons where the females spawn
their young before making the long trip to the cold Alaskan waters
where they summer. Early in the trip we saw a lone Minke Whale, a
smaller species, again one we had not seen before, Offshore
Bottle-Nosed Dolphins playing in the boat's wake, and the smaller
Common Bottle-Nosed Dolphins playing in and out of the displaced
water at the bow of the boat. By late afternoon, almost ready to
admit defeat when it came to seeing whales, our onboard naturalist
saw three Fin Whales, a species I had not heard of, and one neither
Duffy nor I expected to see nor had seen before. These whales are
the second largest whale in the oceans next to the Blue Whale.
According to Wikipedia, the North Pacific populations of these giants
are undocumented. They are larger than the Grays by twenty-three to
thirty-three feet, so somewhere around 75 to 85 feet long. Fins
weigh between 70 and 80 tons, live 80-90 years, and have been called
“The Greyhound of the Sea,” moving swiftly in the ocean and often
outrunning steamships. What we saw skimming the water was actually
only about one-half of the length of the entire whale. We followed
the three for a while until it was time to head back to port. It was
a beautiful day on the water with calm to moderate seas, no
sea-sickness, plenty of blue skies and sunshine. Great fun!
Wednesday, April 18 found us
leaving San Diego, heading north on Hwy 101. Again, the weather was
beautiful, warm and clear. Our plan was to reach Lompoc by nightfall
to stay at the campground where, with our grandchildren in 2010 we
saw and heard a family of Great Horned Owls atop the light standards
in the camping area and in the trees. However, due to the fact that
I slept in a bit later than perhaps I should have, still fighting the
head cold and chest congestion, we left San Diego well after twelve
noon. We drove along Highways 101 and 1 as far as Carpinteria State
Beach, a pretty coastal beach park and campground. As most of these
California beach parks go, there were no hook-ups, but there were
warm showers (remember your quarters). We wondered, other than the
ocean proximity, why the camp fee was high when there were few
amenities. We must have paid for the ocean view, hidden behind a
sand dune between the campground and the beach.
Did I mention that our National
Geographic Birds of North America, our second since the first
volume fell into the Stanislaus River in 2010? (The original still
exists, a bit warped from its dunking while Duffy was maneuvering his
way in the water with a bad knee and the two oldest grandchildren
were riding boogie boards from point to point down the slow river.)
The replacement volume disappeared after visiting Madera Canyon south
of Tucson on April 5th this trip. For days since losing
our bird bible this month, we have used the addition our friend Gene
gave to us a few years ago in the same series of publications:
National Geographic Birds of Western North
America, which is fine in the west until we want to look up a
bird that might have extended its range from the west to an area not
in this publication. We talked about replacing the missing resource,
and I considered gifting Duffy with one for his birthday. In Santee
Lakes , I looked in the console of the Honda, or dreamed I had, under
the sliding cover on which we place our GPS, 'Miss Direction.' You
guessed it – I found the missing bird book! Life seems to be a
series of losings and findings. It is a good thing retirement does
not run by the calendar any more than it does. We spend too much
time chasing our lost items that are “right where we put them.”
This narrative brings me to
today, April 19. This morning, up bright and early, showered and on
the road by 9:00am, we made it about two blocks to Starbucks. Our
intention was to stop there for a quick coffee and a Wi-Fi connection
to arrange tonight's campground. Our destination was east of San
Francisco near Walnut Creek, where tomorrow we plan to visit my
second cousin, Les, on my mother's side and his wife, Bonnie, in the
morning, then in the afternoon spend a little time with friends
Winona and Bill Bayes. Our goal for today is to camp nearby so we
can accomplish these visits and drive the three-plus hours to
Paradise to stay a couple of days with Duffy's sister, Deb.
As we have done on a number of
days, we ate just a little bite with our coffee while driving, then
stopped later for brunch along the way, eliminating the need for
either lunch or a big dinner in the evening. As it happened, we
stopped at a Denny's in – Pismo Beach. Our good friends, Bruce and
Margie, have been much on our minds this trip. It was here in Pismo
Beach that they were run down by a distraught, unthinking young
driver as they were taking their morning walk on a late October day
in 2010. Thankfully, they died instantly. But, they are never far
from our thoughts. It was eerie to realize we had stopped in Pismo
Beach unintentionally as we searched out a breakfast spot that would
have gluten-free options. [Stephanie and Darin, Dennis, and
MacKensie and Zoe if you are reading this know that we loved your mom
and dad, in-laws, and grandparents. I paid tribute to them as we
passed by.]
The closer we came to the SF Bay
Area, it became more and more clear that we were not going to find a
camping spot. First, the research at Starbucks in the morning netted
us nothing, zippo, as Duffy would say. Our GPS couldn't find any
close campgrounds, either. The KOA camp guide we picked up in
Louisiana listed nothing close by, and Good Sam Club's website only
lists campgrounds by name, not location, so that you need to know the
name of the campground before conducting a search. Not at all
practical! About 7:00pm this evening, I decided to call our
grandson, Jamin. He has an iPhone and was able to search for us.
Jamin did a great job, but none of the parks he found had space for
us; we think they were full-time mobile home parks, not RV parks.
So, back to the original plan – climb to the top of Mt. Diablo at
3,000 feet.
This is one reason why we love
our Casita. First, only trailers no longer than 20-feet are allowed
in Mt. Diablo campgrounds. Second, we found out why there are size
limitations – the road twists and turns up the side of the hill,
with no shoulder or barricade to give a false sense of security on
the cliff side. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed. We wound
around, and around, and around. We drove up, and up, and up on
narrow winding roads. Finally, when we thought we would start going
down the other side of the mountain without finding the campground we
were looking for, we approached the gate at the 2,500 foot altitude
and a ranger standing beside his truck waiting for us. If he had not
seen us climbing the winding mountain road from his vantage point
(our lights were on and the sky was darkening), he would have sped
down the mountain and locked the gate. As it was, he took our camp
fee, said adios, and sped down the mountain while we drove on into
the campground. We're here for the night – the gates do not open
until 8:00am tomorrow morning. Best of all? We arrived at the top
to a stunning view of the valley below. As the sun was setting in
the west leaving a burnt orange blush in the sky, the lights of the
San Francisco bedroom communities decorated the valley below.
Snapping a few pictures in the near dark, we set up camp and called
it a night.
Until next time...
Pam
