Wordless Wednesday

Ah, I miss just sitting and watching those happy dogs.

an escape

I have only a limited number of weekends left in San Diego, but today I could not figure out what I wanted to do. I did go to my Saturday morning yoga class, which was refreshing. After I finished with that though, I just could not bring myself to face the hordes of tourists throughout San Diego. So instead, I decided to take a field trip outside of San Diego to explore a little. I went up to north county on Old Highway 101, which runs alongside the Pacific, and did some beach-hopping along the way.

I started at the top at Swami's, about 20 miles north of San Diego. It's apparently one of the best surfing spots around in the winter, although there were lots of people surfing there today.

This is empty compared to the beaches I frequent.

There is a 90-foot cliff that you have to walk down to get to the beach, and after my running the last two days, and my yoga this morning, I had planned an easy rest of the day until I had to walk back up all these stairs!

At the top of the cliff, there is a wonderful 'meditation garden', part of the Self-Realization Fellowship & Retreat Hermitage. It was made by a man named Paramahansa Yogananda in 1936 simply as a serene place that anyone can enjoy, and it certainly was. I could have stayed there all day.

There are benches all over, some more secluded, and others out in the open with amazing views.

the largest Koi I have ever seen

After this, I made my way back down the coast and saw several other beaches: Sea Cliff, Cardiff-by-the-Sea,  and Solana Beach, where they were getting ready for a triathlon tomorrow.

Finally, I stopped at UCSD (University of California- San Diego) because I had heard about their amazing campus. It is definitely beautiful.

The library comes out of nowhere.

They also have eucalyptus groves all over, with trails.

Coronado canines

I went on a beach walk today on Coronado Island (it's actually a peninsula). I had intended for a long walk, and was well on my way, until the military police so kindly informed me that I was not allowed to walk on their beach, so I had to turn back early. Instead, I made my way to the dog beach:

I love the poodles!

 I should also explain that the military has their own beach because there are two bases there: Naval Air Station North Island and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. There are frequent (& noisy) flyovers, and usually interesting large ships to see on the horizon at Coronado.

Coronado is located directly across the bay from downtown San Diego and it is most well-known for its Hotel del Coronado. It was the largest resort hotel in the US when it opened in 1888.

Another interesting thing I learned today is that Charlie Chaplin was very much involved with polo playing on Coronado when he lived there. Here he is on the field in 1921:

courtesy of Coronado Public Library

And, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis plane was built in San Diego and took off from Coronado in order to get to New York to start the trip across the Atlantic. Here's the plane, now at the National Air & Space Museum.

the weekend

This weekend was the Oceanbeach Street Fair & Chili Cookoff. I only participated in the street fair aspect of it because I do not enjoy chili one bit. It was incredibly crowded and it took me 1.5 hours to go the 10 miles from my house to the beach on the trolley and bus. Oceanbeach is known as the "seediest" beach in San Diego. I completely agree, although they've also got a great farmer's market and this festival wasn't so bad either. (As long as you don't walk under the pier, you'll be okay.) It's also one of the more popular surfing spots.

I spent most of my time scoping out surfboards in stores and on the water.

I've made it my mission to find or make a wind chime while I'm in California. There's a store in Old Town that is full of every kind you can imagine:

I happen to think this is pretty great too, though I'm not sure what it would sound like:

At the place I am housesitting this week, there is a giant wind chime made from three-inch-thick cast iron I-beams. Of course with it being so heavy and the lack of anything other than a little breeze, I never heard it and didn't know it was there until I saw it today. I tried it out and it sounds great, and would be perfectly suited for the Kansas winds!

I spent a lot of time in the garden today, pulling weeds and doing turtle inventory. There should be four, I believe. I only found three, and one was lodged between a plant pot and a brick. I thought he had gotten stuck there and died, but he was sleeping apparently, as I found out after tickling his foot.

In the evening, I cooked some miso soup and baked some honey almond cakes, recipe courtesy of my sister. I found these adorable cupcake liners at Ikea for only $1, but while baking there was no cupcake tin to be found, hence the puzzle-piece blob cakes.

                                                          Still, my roommates seemed to like them!

"There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged  in his deepest reveries-- stand that man on his legs, set his feet a going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in that region... Yes as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever." --Moby Dick, Herman Melville

La Jolla Cliffs

sea lions & a sunset

sea lions

  a lovely evening at La Jolla

four weddings and a sand castle

Yes, that's right. There were four of these on the beach tonight! All lovely.

And an amazing sandcastle:

Happy World Oceans Day!

Today I found out that the hordes of adorable sea lions around here are actually considered a problem for boaters. I was so excited to see wild sea lions when I first got here, and I was unaware how many there are along the coast of San Diego, but it's their migrating season now.

Apparently, not only do they enjoy the rocky cliffs along the water, they also enjoy relaxing on boats.

That orange construction netting is suppose to keep them off and the larger male sea lions can weigh about 600 pounds, so it's easy to see how they can damage the boats. The city has people working to move them by using water hoses and nudging them off with long poles, but I read about how they will slide off when they hear people coming and just wait under the boat until they leave!

the beach!

I've finally made it to a sandy California beach! How exciting! Coronado Beach, to be exact. (Sidenote: I swear this is the second cloudy day I've seen in the three weeks I've been here. The first cloudy day was the first day I got here. It was actually sunny all day until this evening.)

They've got to be cold!

No wonder there is a no kite flying rule. The runway is right at the end of the beach.

And the lifeguards drive Subarus. I want to be a lifeguard. Until those crazy surfers go out in the freezing cold water and get sucked into an undertoe.

sorry Zen Zero

I just had the best Thai food ever, and it didn't come from my beloved restaurant Zen Zero in my beloved city of Lawrence. But that's alright. I've come to the conclusion that San Diego has some of the best restaurants I've been to, and surprisingly there are places even college students can afford.

Today was a work day. I started it off with more free pancakes at the hostel, and I noticed the Kazakhs I taught how to make pancakes yesterday had not progressed much past another 3-lb pile of a mixture of burned crispies and sloppy batter. At the museum, I did more of the same at work in terms of collection cataloging. Not much to mention in that department.

The trolley adventure today was just that-- an adventure. At least I managed to get on trolleys all going in the desired directions, even though I missed one thinking it was going opposite where I wanted when in fact it was the exact one I wanted.

I can't believe I'm going to admit this, but I got lost this evening. If you know me, you know I never get lost. Even so, I wasn't really lost because I knew I was on the right street the entire time-- I just happened to walk right past my hostel and kept on going, thinking I would see it. All the people out enjoying their Friday nights were distracting, as was this fellow:

And he was good! Good enough I gave him $1. I've got a three day weekend, so that means I'll finally spend some time sightseeing. I've seen lots of sights from the boat I sit on every day, which mostly consists of this type:

On the inside of the boat, the upper deck of the museum is where the ferry seating is. The boat was built in 1898 and took 1700 people at a time from Oakland to San Francisco. It's got beautiful stained glass windows (except they aren't stained, they are some other thing that I can't remember that is better than stained, but still colored). Anyway, it's gorgeous. People use it for their wedding receptions. Not a bad idea...

Today was windy ("windy" at about 15 mph), and the water choppy. The museum (boat) was rocking, which I was unsure whether it could do or not until today. I'm amazed at how consistent the weather is here. It's cool in the evenings (60 F), and mostly sunny throughout the day (70 F). And that's the 10-day forecast from weather.com!

a few minutes and some decent internet

After an afternoon of stress, I'm finally in a place where I can relax for a bit and give an update on my little adventure so far. I've started my work at the San Diego Maritime Museum which consists mostly of cataloging objects. That means I go through and look at each item, noting damage or other issues, and take photos. I then put all the information, including an accession number, into the database on the computer. It's a little tiring for an all-day activity, but at least the objects are interesting. Today I worked on sailing sketches (some very good ones in ink), some Pacific Island boat models and art by Gauguin, which are part of a new exhibit on Captain Cook, Gauguin, and Herman Melville:

http://www.sdmaritime.org/three-voyages

After work today, I was frantically trying to find a Starbucks, as it is the only place pretty much guaranteed to have free internet (which I have decided I am too reliant on).  Anyway, I ended up at one of those Starbucks stands inside a grocery store, which as it turns out, did not have internet. I then made a fool out of myself trying to make my way through a rotating gates that would not rotate in the direction I intended to walk. Who puts up one of those in a grocery store anyway?? It looked like they had installed cattle panels in there...

I'm now biding my time in a hostel in downtown San Diego until I can move into the apartment I am renting next week. The friendly girl in the bunk below me is from Denmark, but she lived in San Diego for 4 years while in school and is back for a visit, so she's been very helpful with information about this place. Thank goodness.

And because no blog post is complete without a picture...

This is right outside of San Diego. If it wasn't all Indian Reservation, I'd love to live here, away from the city.