Mission Bay Scenes, 2022

We were six weeks this year on Mission Bay, in San Diego, at Campland on the Bay, a large privately-owned campground on the Bay. We were busy most of the time, planning future travels, maintaining the camper, and getting upwards of 15,000 steps a day in preparation for future adventures. We confined ourselves entirely to foot travel, in support of the exercise regimen, but also because we did not want to go in anywhere with Omicron surging most of January. We were thus lousy tourists, and someday we'll have to come back to San Diego and visit some of its worthy attractions and cultural treasures. Someday. In the meantime, we have arrangements and reservations for visits to Rome, Florence, London, Paris, and assorted points thereabouts for the summer....for Berlin, Prague and Vienna for the fall...and for New Zealand in the winter. As usual nowadays, everything is conditional, and refundable, to a point. But we're hopeful.

We enjoyed our time on Mission Bay again and certainly can recommend it, for the weather mostly, but also for the laid back and easy going culture. 

Our campsite, N21, at Campland on the Bay

One of my favorite trees is the Pohutukawa...the New Zealand
Christmas tree...native to the North Island, but nowadays 
spread all over the world, especially California; memo to self:
do not park under Pohutukawas when blooming

Our favorite walk, 2-3 times a week, was to the ocean at Pacific
Beach, a bit over a mile away, along Pacific Beach Boulevard;
a beautifully landscaped island on the boulevard held this secluded
bench, where we stopped to rest coming and going

Contemporary architecture on the boardwalk; rents for $8k a
night, each floor

Pacific Beach, looking toward the pier, on a week day in January

Back on the Bay, Sail Bay, a beach artist/architect at work

Para-sailing on Sail Bay

On the east side of the bay, at Mission Bay Park...strummin',
pluckin', and fiddlin'...

On Pacific Beach Boulevard, a real Woody

Everything's up to date in Pacific Beach (ATM inside)

Everywhere you look, flora of interest

Thai peanut curry, with locally-sourced cilantro

Thus

Jade plants thrive in this climate and are used for all kinds of
landscaping; this one had trunks nearly a foot in diameter

Alas, we did not get to Mexico this trip

But we did get to the top of one of the eastern hills one day, with
this view of part of Mission Bay and the sea beyond

More weird plants

Back on the beach, looking at the regatta

Woody's on the board walk, where we often had lunch

Most ubiquitous of the flora

Precious little is left of the wetlands--they're now the bay and
its assorted landforms; but many in San Diego yearn for their
return and celebrate what little is left

Thus, one Saturday

From the campground across to the celebration, encompassing
most of what is left of the wetlands

Us, there, then

Beware The Tides of January

We awoke abruptly January 15th to a National Weather Service tsunami warning (maybe it was an advisory), stemming from an undersea volcano explosion near Tonga (in the South Pacific), urging everyone in San Diego's coastal areas to stay away from the beach, where waves of 1-3 feet were expected. 1-3 feet. As a result, no doubt, the roads to Pacific Beach, a mile from here, became immediately clogged by cars carrying surfboards and anything else that might catch a wave. T-shirt makers presumably are already marketing their "I survived the 2022 tsunami in San Diego" wares.

I suppose we are in fact in a coastal area, about 200 feet from a beach on Mission Bay, a little over a mile to the actual ocean. Mission Bay, as I noted in a previous post, is a completely man-made "bay," dotted with islands and peninsulas and such, and featuring an assortment of parks, trails, nature reserves, marinas, beaches, golf courses, athletic fields, and, of course, Campland on the Bay, a campground where we are presently and pleasantly ensconced. It's all on landfill, 8-10 feet above the bay's dredged out water level, which is entirely protected from the ocean except by a narrow channel. Subsequent visual inspection of the bay by me revealed its usual glassy surface. If the tsunami in fact got into Mission Bay, it was probably about the size of the tidal bore we saw in Moncton, New Brunswick, 50 or so years ago, which we pronounced a total bore. 

We didn't venture outside to witness the tsunami on the bay because--horrors!--it was raining. Rain is not what one comes to San Diego for, and on this day it has caused us to completely revise our plan of activities. Just what one might expect on the Ides. Instead of continuing the camper waxing project, Vicki is baking scones. We may have to delay or even cancel our daily walk. We are now regularly doing around 15,000 steps a day. But, our other daily activities, cooking, reading, planning future travels, churning credit cards, working on the camper, watching assorted videos or TV, will continue. If nothing else, the tsunami and rain have given me the pretense needed to post again, after a couple weeks of inactivity. Be safe.

Undersea volcanic eruption

Mission Bay from outer space

The wolves of capitalism never sleep

PS...the next day we walked to the (ocean) beach by way of Sail Bay, to survey the havoc wrought by the tsunami...

Although there were vestiges of the previous day's rain all
around, there was only one sad fatality...

The 1-3 foot waves of the tsunami apparently were too much for her
diminutive stature...RIP, Barbie

Interim Update #1,260

Happy New Year! January 2nd finds us again on Mission Bay, near San Diego. It was an interesting journey, getting here.

We bade our farewells in Menlo Park December 29th, and headed south on US 101, hoping to swing over to California 1, the coastal route, and to enjoy the scenery (also the sprawl) all the way to San Diego. Just past Gilroy, however, we learned that route 1 was closed indefinitely...slips and slides...so we backtracked a bit, crossed Pacheco Pass and then drove down I-5, through the Valley of Fruits and Nuts, to the intersection with route #58 and a night at a large truck stop there. All was well, if cold and rainy, and we were happy to be on the road again. The next day, heading south with only 100 miles' travel before us, things went very south: I-5 was "closed indefinitely" due to snow and ice on Caradhras, I mean Tejon Pass. "So, if the mountain defeats you, Gandalf, where then will you go?" we asked ourselves. The nice highway patrol person suggested we detour on route #58, east of Bakersfield. Apparently he told some other people to do this too, since there was much traffic, grid-lock, and red zone on Google Maps the next six hours it took us to get to our motel in Van Nuys. Fortunately, there was no Balrog of Morgoth along the way.

"Motel in Van Nuys?" you ask. Yes. The rain and snow and ice and traffic were only the beginning of a long, not very good day. Although I had had some significant professional interaction with the Getty way back in 1992, we'd never been to the museum, and thought this trip might be the right opportunity. We'd reserved two nights at a motel in Van Nuys, planning to Uber over to the museum on December 31st, to see it on what was presumably one of its least busy days, and then carry on southward. Despite years of museum experience worldwide and two years' experience in dealing with COVID and its implications, we had failed to do a late check on whether the Getty's admission policies had changed in view of Omicron. Apparently they had, and they were sold out for the day in question as well as the next week.  A disappointment, but very likely we'll be back through, sometime. Anyhow, Vicki was able to cancel the second night at the motel, and the next morning our trip south continued.

Our first priority on leaving Van Nuys was to get some diesel for the camper. We'd arrived in a rainstorm with the fuel gauge already showing "reserve." Our first several tries suggested only bio-diesel was available. According to Mercedes-Benz, more than 5% bio-diesel is verboten for Sprinters. So we resolved to drive across Los Angeles County on reserve, hoping it would carry us 60 or 75 miles to a truck stop or such where regular old normal diesel #2 might be available. By the time we got into Orange County, my nerves were frazzled, and we stopped and bought four gallons of "renewable diesel." (Movies have been made about people who run out of gas in east LA (Grand Canyon)). Those four gallons smelled like French fry oil but, we have since read, are okay for our rig in an emergency. They got us to our next stop, the Alise Creek rest area, overlooking the Pacific, just north of Oceanside. There we spent a surprisingly quiet New Year's eve, along with a handful of other campers. As students of this blog know, we are not big party types.

Next day, we proceeded on to Oceanside harbor and the large RV parking area there, right on the beach, getting excellent mileage out of the French fry oil. We spent a pleasant day and night there, enjoying the warmer, sunnier, drier weather, looking at all the surfers, the vintage and other cars on parade, and other campers. A very southern California crowd, all the stereotypes and other things in abundance. Today, Sunday, we had a nice outside lunch with Vicki's brother Bob and his wife Beth before heading on the few remaining miles to Mission Bay. Detouring, of course, to fill up with some good old diesel #2. 

We plan to lay low at Campland on the Bay, on Mission Bay, where we stayed two months last year,  resting for a few weeks, monitoring Omicron and related matters (our Paris boosters are feeling a bit dated), and deciding what to do and where to go next. Stay tuned.

Departure, December 29th, 2021

"And if the mountain defeats you, where then will you go, Gandalf?"

Still whizzing during the winter storm, unlike in Texas

Cactus vs. tree, Van Nuys

Across the channel at Oceanside Harbor, a chorus of harbor 
seals barked all through the night

New Year's Day sunset

Vicki, Beth, and Bob

Fun Old-Fashioned Family Christmas, 2021

Christmas scenes from 2021, at Rebecca and Jeremy's in Menlo Park. Rachel and Will were back in Missoula, visiting the Sehestedts. 

Christmas eve lunch: the cheese fondue course

Egg nog tasting (Nellie's was the consensus
favorite); note Wally World tasting cup

Christmas eve fondue dinner...shrimp, scallops, chicken, steak;
and the array of sauces at the end of the table

Happily, our Christmas pyramid (from Kathe
Wohlfahrt, Rothernburg ob der Tauber, 1979)
worked yet again; taller candles help

Among our traditions is opening a present on
Xmas eve 

Action shots of me opening a sweatshirt from Rebecca and
Rachel: "It's a beaut, Clark!", a favorite line from Christmas
Vacation 

Christmas morning: a sashibo from Aunt Carole

Relishing the thought of dyeing Grandma's hair...
green? red? blue? chartreuse?

Penelope's super-sized stocking

Undoubtedly more Potter-head paraphrenalia

Crafts and make-up, her other passions; presently

Book-binding kit; now she has to write the book

Christmas brunch

Ditto

Setting for Christmas dinner: the cheese and 
charcuterie course; after all these meals, we had
to wait a couple days for the chocolate fondue
finale; see previous post