Heading south to 13 degrees north

I'm usually content with where I am at the moment, unless it's too cold for comfort, but I do still embrace my Restless Barb identity. This is the spot I'm imagining the most right now. We'll probably come here our first morning, to the tables under the Indian almond tree, in front of the Gingerbread Hotel, facing Admiralty Bay, on the island of Bequia in the Grenadines. The little bakery here has great coffee, and of course gingerbread and cinnamon rolls and cookies and cakes. I expect we'll run into friends from previous trips here. And it's a good place to sit in the shade with a book. Gee, I guess our travels have become less exciting over the years. We'll try to meet a few challenges as well, and here at the Gingerbread we can rest up for those adventures. We'll be here most of February, so there's time for both. I'll try to keep you posted.

Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge

There are more trips to tell, but I think I should start with the current one and work backwards.

Last Sunday was a day trip. We drove down I-15 and then I-5 to Imperial Beach, one of the last towns before the border, to the Tijuana Slough wildlife refuge and nature area. It's part of the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, and there is another wildlife refuge farther south. We intend to wander through that one as well, on another Sunday.
It's easy to get to. Going south on I-5, take the Coronado Avenue exit (Exit 4) and go west. Coronado turns into Imperial Blvd. Turn left on 4th and right on Caspian Way.

At the parking lot there's an interpretive center with racks of birding and environmental information, helpful staff, and a few interesting displays that are worth a few minutes. Then grab a trail map and go for a walk, beginning along the fence of a naval air station. The trails aren't complicated and it's very flat with no shade, but there's an ocean breeze to fool you into thinking you're not getting a sunburn.

We took a closeup of a large and complicated cholla. Touch one of those spines at your peril.

The several trails and loops connect to the Tijuana river mouth, where hundreds of pelicans hung out on a far bank, and on another little island in the stream, egrets and a cormorant. We forgot to take a picture of the river!

We didn't exactly go to Mexico, but you can see it, the hills rising up behind Tijuana with buildings large and small. What stands out is the bull ring, abandoned now, but an icon to the Tijuana experience. The Coronado Islands of Mexico are visible offshore.

When we got to the river we met a white-bearded fellow on a bicycle, who has lived in this neighborhood for 30 years. He had a worriesome cough but was full of joy about this place. He said the city of Tijuana wants to tear down the bull ring, because it's not only unused but in a deteriorated condition. But that old timers like himself object, because they are attached to history.

Mike commented that if we were British tourists, we would have reported back on meeting a friendly American character. And of course, we can report the same.

Guest blogger coming up, maybe

Well first, the guest blogger thing. My nephew the artist Nathan is heading for New Zealand in the middle of January, and I invite him to blog his trip here on my travel blog. So watch for that.

Me? I haven't been traveling much. We made the move and we settled in. We had the anniversary trip, previous post, and if you want to know the truth we actually had a fight as we were leaving Santa Barbara and hardly spoke all day on the train ride home. After 50 years! Yes, fights still happen. But that evened out, as it always does. (Of course I was right, by the way.) That's the nice thing about 50 years. You've put in so much time, you put these things in perspective.

Well we have been to Sacramento and Petaluma, the week before Thanksgiving. Even though I swore I would not travel I-5 again, we took the car. Had a good time with dear friends in Sacramento and dear kids/grandkids in Petaluma. Traffic jam on the way home on the 210 through Pasadena and east that we could have done without. Then Thanksgiving the next weekend in Palm Desert with sister-in-law and four nieces. And that's about it for the road, except to look for an independent bookstore which required going all the way to Del Mar.

Have I mentioned that Southern California is everything I remembered from my kid days? We had a spate of serious rain (some folks even got flooded) but mostly it's been lovely. It's my climate and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Okay, next trip is the Sacramento/Petaluma thing again, NOT driving, and I will report on what it is like to take the Amtrak bus to Bakersfield from LA and then up the Valley on the San Joaquin. I go first and spend two nights with Judy (sometimes known as Eeyore) in Sacramento and then catch another train and a thru-way bus to Petaluma, and meet up with the old guy there. We'll be spending a week at sesshin, which is a Buddhist retreat, in Santa Rosa and then another weekend with the kids before training home.

This is probably boring in the planning stages, but maybe there will be adventures to report. And we are talking about going back to Bequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) for three weeks in May, when the off-season hits. So you'll hear more about that. Frequent flyer miles and off-season rates, a very reasonable way to go. Now that we live in Lotus Land we don't have to escape in the winter. Thank you very much.

50 Years and Counting

In October of 1960 we got married in Altadena on a Friday afternoon, in the back yard of the house where I grew up, and then went out for Chinese food, just the two of us newlyweds. I remember we kept holding our left hands up side by side, admiring our new matching gold bands, so I suppose anyone observing us could have guessed what we'd been up to that day. The plan was to drive to Santa Barbara for Friday and Saturday nights, because Mike had to be back at work on Monday. It's about 100 miles. But we got a late start and stayed in Ventura or Oxnard the first night. That left us with a one-night honeymoon at the beach. I remember we ate fried scallops and chips from a beachside fast food place, sitting at a picnic table, and I have never managed to replicate that experience. I suspect -- no, by now I'm sure -- that it wasn't just the scallops.

Last week we commemorated the 50th anniversary of that weekend by returning to Santa Barbara, this time for three nights and no work to come back to. It was actually next door to the place we stayed in 1960! This one was nicer though, and a great internet special price that made it cheaper too. We're not that sentimental.

The fast food fish place is gone. But there are so many wonderful restaurants, and we took advantage. There's a walk around the yacht harbor to the end of the breakwater, and lots of the recovering population of brown pelicans are in view. The wharf is another nice water walk. And the famous El Paseo mall, smack in the middle of downtown, is beautifully laid out with elegant architectural deail. Santa Barbara is unusual in having such a complete downtown mall, with Nordstrom's and Macy's as anchors. There's a 25¢ shuttle from the foot of the wharf that traverses State Street every 15 minutes or so.

This is only one of the blooming things we saw as we walked the blocks inland from the beach, on our way to and from downtown. Maybe it's the most exotic one, but there are huge hibiscus everywhere, and hundreds of other blooming bushes, and ancient trees with thick trunks, just practically a jungle.

We didn't drive this time. A local bus stops just outside our driveway, and it delivered us to the Escondido Transit Center. From there a light rail line goes to Oceanside. From Oceanside we caught Amtrak's Surfliner to Santa Barbara, and ended up in walking distance from our hotel. It excites my imagination that I can roll my bag out my front door and go anywhere in the world, because there's a frequent shuttle from the train at Union Station in L.A. directly to LAX. It makes me feel viscerally connected.

What happens in reality is a little bit of a drag though -- the romance of the rails isn't so romantic on these commuter runs. It's important to have a book. The 15 miles or so to the coast from Escondido takes an hour on the light rail, because there are 15 stops. The Surfliner train is packed, and in order to get seats together we had to sit backwards, because single individuals take up at least half of the forward facing seats. You have to try not to be irritated by that. We spent the whole way from Oceanside to Los Angeles watching for a chance to get seats together where we could face forward, and at about Anaheim we succeeded. Guess what. In LA the train changes direction on the way out of the station and goes in reverse. On the way home again we just sat backwards from Santa Barbara to L.A., because we knew the game.

But here's the thing. You don't have to drive. You don't have to drive through Los Angeles! And the travel times are very close -- 5-6 hours. The round trip price is good, especially if you are old enough to be celebrating your 50th anniversary.

Too much mall travel

The days have been filled with moving in and getting settled chores, and the only traveling we've done once we made the third and final drive down I-5 from Bellingham WA to Escondido CA is shopping. We've done serious Ikea shopping, and hardware stores, and have spent way too much time in parking lots. I do have a few favorite stores, and my sister-in-law who lives here has introduced me to a cool consignment place called Debra's, where I found the Mexican pottery cat who now presides over our living room.

But yesterday we went on a non-retail outing (although we ended up at the mall, again, looking for lunch and chairs). Kit Carson Park in the south part of Escondido is one of those sprawling regional parks, almost 300 acres, with trails and ponds and picnic tables. And all those trees that brought me back here -- eucalyptus and pepper trees, sycamore and live oak. Those silhouettes, and those smells.

We walked a bit, around the aboretum (not much developed), and hidden away in the middle is Queen Califia's Magic Circle. I don't yet have the words for this. Overwhelming. Here's an image hint, but there's so much more. Like they say, you kinda have to be there. You need to walk through and look closely, see the details, and touch stuff. I think I will go back soon and sit on one of the curvy mosaic benches in the shade and try to get my words around it. If you are in Escondido, maybe to see the Wild Animal Park, it's right on your way from San Diego.

Well it's March. The last post was May. Sorry about that. In the meantime we canceled our winter trip to Arizona for a medical difficulty, decided we should think about where we would want to be "stuck" if something more serious came along, like being way too old to travel, and shopped for a new place in Escondido, CA, the place that feels the most like home to me even though I never actually lived there (but my mom was born there), and are in the process of relocating. More later. I never thought I'd have these great tile floors. Yep, they're mine.

Home is a destination

We just had the big Ski to Sea relay race weekend in Bellingham. The race is on the Sunday of every Memorial Day weekend, pretty much since 1911. The total race is about 90 miles, with seven legs. It starts on Mount Baker, with downhill and cross country skiing, followed by running, a road bike and a mountain bike course, canoeing on the Nooksack River, and kayaking from the mouth of the river to the beach here in Fairhaven. 

And then Fairhaven has a big party. The Village Green has booths from non-profits, and music all day on the stage. The place was packed with people coming and going, sitting on the grass for the music or getting something tasty to eat from one of the local restaurant food booths there, or from the Colophon Cafe which has outdoor seating on the Green. The statue of Fairhaven's founder,  Dirty Dan Harris, is always popular. Some of the town center streets are blocked off so that vendors can put up booths. Lots of food choices. I had jerk chicken skewers with mango salsa and salad, and Mike had a falafel sandwich. Other booths have things to buy. Most of it is frankly junk, but some nice things. I bought a hat. There are pony rides and one of those inflated bouncing places for the kids. 

There's more music, with local bands playing all day on the stage next to the beer garden. We got a desperation e-mail on Saturday night asking if we could take a shift selling beer tickets, which we did. I wish I'd taken a picture of the beer garden--which is no way a garden. Basically it's a big section of parking lot surrounded by a high chain link fence, with security guards at the entrance to check IDs, and some tents for shade. But it is way popular, full of people wall to wall. This is a college town, which probably accounts for the fact that so many people find this an entertaining place to be. Really, Fairhaven has a couple of good pubs, and plenty of restaurants where you can get a draft beer. I guess standing on asphalt drinking shoulder to shoulder with a thousand or so people has something more to offer. Anyway, it's a cheerful crowd, and we sold tickets for two hours non-stop before someone relieved us and we got our reward, a free beer.

Down at Boulevard Park, a mile away along a waterfront path, there's a huge car show every year. This picture is from a few years ago, because we forgot our camera this time.

We had perfect weather. Almost 70 degrees. There were a reported 35,000 people in town. That's for an area about 6 square blocks. And we live right smack in the middle of it. When I was a kid I always wanted to live somewhere that people wanted to come. So this is really fun.