Socal Wanderings

I visited Southern California earlier this month. Spent two days and nights in Coronado, my longest visit since I lived there off and on while in the Navy from 1973-1977. Coronado is still very nice...it's every bit as pleasant as when I lived there. It's in a unique setting. It's just a small city...about 23 thousand, up from 20K when I was there...but it's only a mile from downtown San Diego, just across the bay. The kicker is that the only way to get to Diego from Coronado is over the bridge...otherwise you have to drive 30 miles or so around San Diego Bay. This geography gives Coronado a large degree of isolation considering its proximity to the big city. You're right next to a city of over a million people, yet you're in a small town that's quiet except briefly at the rush hours of adjacent North Island Naval Air Station. My ship was usually moored at North Island when I was on it in the 1970s.

This is a typical street scene in Coronado...lush tropical vegetation everywhere. In the background is the San Diego skyline. But there's a mile of water between this 'hood and the highrises. When I lived in Coronado in the '70s, the bridge over the bay had a toll of 60 cents each way...close to 3 bucks in today's dollars. This isolated Coronado from Diego even more than it is today.


This is the USS Nimitz, moored at North Island at Pier Lima (if I recall correctly). This is where my ship, the USS Chicago, was usually moored. It was a heavy cruiser, long since decommissioned. Scrapped in 1992...made into razor blades? The Nimitz is a venerable vessel herself, commissioned in 1975...when I was in the fleet.

Coronado is a great walking town. It's all very nice, and flat...it's about a mile square. As in Portland, the old sidewalks have contractor logos, adding an element of interest. Here The Foot is posing next to an old logo that was nicely preserved when the sidewalk was rebuilt. Trivia...this sidewalk was built in the same month that saw the beginning of World War I.

This is an interesting metal sculpture The Conster and I saw in San Diego. We took the ferry over from Coronado one day. Like much else about this trip, there was an element of nostalgia for me. On my first visit to San Diego, in 1961, the only way from downtown to Coronado was by ferry...the bridge wasn't completed until 1969. While I lived in Coronado in the '70s, there was no ferry. Now a passenger ferry has been revived, and it offers a pleasant bay cruise between downtown San Diego and the eastern end of Coronado.


Here the Lizards and The Foot are chillin' at the Hotel Del Coronado, a continuous bastion of luxury since 1888.

Bitterwater Road Extravaganza

This has not been a spectacular rainy season in California...around average in most places. However, the rain has fallen steadily and moderately since the first of the year, and has continued into April, along with below normal temperatures. The result has been a late but excellent wildflower season from the desert to the coast. Last Friday, heading home on tedious highway 46 toward Paso Robles, I decided to take a detour onto Bitterwater Road. This is a quiet route, paved but very lightly settled, almost no traffic. Most of the year, this country is brown and rather desolate. But not now! It's a garden! Here's a meadow full of goldfields, east of Shandon. These flowers are also blooming profusely in the Mojave desert.

A fine mix of tidy tips and owls clover.

A large field of tidy tips...just east of the goldfields in the earlier picture.

This hillside of poppies was just across the road from all the tidy tips.

This is a macro shot of fiddlenecks...each flower is less than an inch in diameter. These are some of the largest, most richly colored fiddlenecks I've seen.

I took tons of pictures in this area. May post more in the near future. The hills near Bitterwater Road were purple, gold, and yellow...absolutely beautiful!

Super Spring Wildflowers

Ocotillo blooming in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, with a brittlebrush laden hill in the background.

Fishhook barrel cactus flowers.

Pincushion cactus...only a few inches high.

Gaudy beavertail cactus blooms.

At the end of March, I saw many buckhorn cholla cacti with lots of buds, but no blooms. Now, in mid April, they're flowering profusely.

On the way home from San Diego last week, I read that Anza Borrego was continuing to bloom very nicely, so detoured east through the mountains and into the desert. Well worth the trip! In mid April, at least this year, I found the perfect combination of many ground based flowers still in bloom, along with lots of blossoming cactus. The peak blooming time for the cactus is later than for plants like poppies and brittlebrush...there's only a very few weeks where everything is a splash of color, and that time is right now! Overall, rainfall has only been about normal this winter, but after a dry start to the season it's been wetter than average starting in January, and the rain has continued into April. Also, temperatures have been cooler than normal. This gentle weather pattern, with plentiful late season rain and cool weather, has resulted in a very fine flower season.

Spring Storm on the Central Coast

Yesterday, April 11, I drove down the coast from Monterey to Pismo Beach accompanied by an unusually strong April storm. I stayed ahead of most of the rain, but was buffeted by 20-40 knot winds the whole way...mostly in the upper end of that range. Lost a baseball cap to the wind south of Big Sur. At this spot south of Lucia, the sea was relatively calm as a headland blocked the south winds. The stream running into the ocean was more robust than usual at this time of year.

I've been going to Pismo a couple times a year for over a decade and have never seen the wind as strong as it was yesterday. It blew numerous palm fronds off the trees surrounding the pool and hot tub and deposited them against the fence.

Though I didn't encounter too much rain during the drive, about an hour after I reached Pismo the bulk of the storm caught up to me and it pourred down in horizontal sheets. This pic was taken just before the rain stopped...the wind had already abated. Blow up the pic and you can see the raindrops sparkling in the sun. The plastic chairs on the lawn were set up for a wedding, which had to be moved inside.

The sun after the storm produced a full rainbow, but only a fair-to-middlin' one in terms of brightness.

A beautiful sunset finished the day on a fine note.

I 10 Flower Explosion!

Last week there were zillions of desert dandelions along Interstate 10 between Blythe and Indio. This is normally godforsaken country, barren and arid...but on the last day of March it was a garden of flowers!

More pics from this years fine desert flower season. Here the lizards are showing their esthetic appreciation for some desert dandelions near I-10 in California.

This fishhook barrel cactus has one early flower...and hundreds of curved spines.

Chuparosa in Joshua Tree National Park.

Nice lupine field in White Tank, west of Phoenix.

There were large masses of phacelia in White Tank, usually under paloverde or mesquite trees where there was some shade.