59 posts tagged “san diego”

Yesterday, we took a Labor Day Weekend Excursion to another one of San Diego’s dog-favorites – Coronado’s Dog Beach.  We went down with good friends we hadn’t seen in too long and their two mini-dachshunds, Indiana Jones and Bella Xocolate – who is the newest addition to their household, about 10 weeks old.

The weather was grand, with a nice cool breeze coming in off the ocean.  The doxie’s were pretty happy to stay close, while Penny found it a great place to run…

…and run…

… finally we corralled her enough to come home.

We all a nice dinner on the Aerie’s patio (even Bella who was tuckered out) and relax with a glass of wine….

or two…

No yard work today!

Perhaps I'll go make myself a nice cold drink...

Yesterday, the Beloved took a day off (after a couple of long days) and we set our sights on watching a little of the Sport of Kings.  Yep, we went to the track.  Here in San Diego, that means going to the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which is a beautiful track right by the sea.

Both of us like horse-racing -- though we really don't bet extravagantly.  We arrived in plenty of time for the first post (2 pm) and were able to grab a pretty tasty hand-carved sandwich.  We spent the day moseying between our seats, the paddock and the rail.

As you might think, we did better on races in which we observed the horses in the paddock.  While it's sometimes difficult to figure out which horse looks best, you can often tell who's having a Bad Day --- foaming, rearing, crazy-eyed horses don't tend to follow jockey's instructions -- seeing that will usually over-ride any positive suggestions in the racing form.

Not only is it good to watch the horses, but a day at the races affords some pretty awesome people watching.  From retiree couples looking very dapper in summer resort wear to twenty-somethings decked out to impress, to grizzled looking guys betting on several tracks simultaneously who seem a little annoyed when you ask the person at the window to explain the difference between an exacta-box and a quinella.

And who knew jockeys had groupies?

We had a good day -- out of eight races, the Beloved won on three and I won on two (never the same race oddly).  I think we each ended up a little on the downside (maybe $10-15) though I was about a horsehead from winning >$100 in one race.  Great time.

Good weekend at the The Aerie this past weekend.  The Big Event was hosting a dinner at our house taking advantage of Cori’s visiting from NorCal.  She, Noelle and Janette (with hubby and kids) came over for drinks, dinner and dessert in the back yard.  It was really a blast and Penny made a friend for life with Janette’s three-year-old daughter.

Of course, the camera never came out, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

On Sunday, the Beloved and I were able to be guests, visiting with one of our good friends that has part-ownership of a boat on Mission Bay.

So, in the afternoon we took “The Minnow” out for slightly less than a three hour tour.
The weather did not start to get rough at all --- it was warm and sunny and we got a great tour around the Bay.  Finished off with a mojito or two back at his house as a great way to cap the weekend.

So, living in San Diego, one pleasure is getting to head down to the coast and walk along the bluffs at Ellen Browning Scripps park in La Jolla.  The park is a large open grassy area that folks of all ages use to picnic, play and walk and enjoy the gorgeous scenery.  It’s great public access for a part of town that is pretty high rent otherwise.

On the southern end of the park is the La Jolla Children’s pool.   Which ever since I moved here, I'd always heard referred to as The Seal Pool.  You wouldn’t know it, but this piece of beach has been one of the bigger public debates ever since I moved here nearly a decade ago.

A little history:  In 1931, Ms Scripps granted to the state the park and paid for a large, arcing sea wall to be built to shelter children and give them a place to play where they’re protected from waves.  The gift was approved by the state legislature and signed by the Governor – notably dictating that:

"said lands shall be devoted exclusively to public park, bathing pool for children, parkway, highway, playground, and recreational purposes".

Fast forward 60 years, when in the 1990s, California Harbor Seals began to haul out and rook at the site.  The site began to be closed fairly often for “seal excrement overload”.  Kids could often no longer play and swim there.  Tempers between pro-kid-swimming and pro-seal-hanging-outing began to rise.

In fact, the whole time I’ve lived here, the disposition of the park has been in the courts.  And the reason is that it’s pretty complicated – mostly about who has jurisdiction here.  The land was granted for a specific purpose – that’s pretty clear – and ratified by the state – and it shouldn’t matter that it was nearly 80 years ago.  

The California Coastal Commission said that the pool cannot be a seal preserve, but advocates say the seals fall under the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act – though they are not particularly endangered.  All of a sudden we have eminent domain crashing into local versus state versus federal jurisdiction wrangling!  Oy!

Just this week, the Governator signed legislation giving the San Diego City Council jurisdiction over the Children’s Pool, starting in 2010.  But not to be pre-empted, a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled that the seals had to be gone – and within 72 hours!  The current plan has the city using (and I’m not making this up) recorded barking dog sounds to disperse the seals.  The estimated cost (and I’m not making this up either): $700,000 --- mostly for round-the-clock security to protect the dispersers and their equipment from pro-seal advocates.  Clearly, this is a really bone-headed idea and I think likely to be suspended by a higher court before we really get silly.

As for me, I have a soft spot for the seals (and lets face it, this is because seals are cute – if they weren’t we wouldn’t be having this argument – animal control would be out there in a heartbeat) and would like to think that they should be allowed to stay – or at least have free rein to use the park.   Just like any other beach, if it’s too polluted to use, then sorry kids – schlep all the way over to La Jolla Shores for the day, okay?

Of course, given my libertarian leanings –I think about me.  What if I had granted the use of some of my land for a specific purpose –- say a tennis center --  and then a couple decades later some folks decided that it should be used as a bird sanctuary and decide to convert it.  I don’t think I’d be very happy, and might wonder what it would take for me to get my gift back.

Yesterday, Penny and I took a pleasant early-morning excursion to the local park and canyon that was the inspiration for her name -- the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, which is essentially down the hill from our house.

Penny really enjoyed it --- there were SO MANY NEW THINGS TO SMELL!!  There were birds to flush and bunnies to scatter.

We did a nice combo of trail running and exploring.

The preserve is pretty serious about keeping dogs on leash when in the park, which Penny wasn't a big fan of.

Even so --- we found a good spot or two to do some off-leash (or at least leash-dragging) practice.

We were out early with a little cloud cover and back home before the heat of the day kicked in. All in all, a great morning.

This past week, we had some friends visit us at The Aerie for a too-brief visit but there was still a good collection of quality San Diego vacationing.  On Sunday, we all trooped over to the beach for a great day (even if it was a little over-cast and breezy).

Monday, our guest family went over to Sea World to visit with Shamu and yesterday, we all went to the San Diego Zoo.  For me, this was a nice bookend on the day the Beloved and I had to the Wild Animal Park a couple of weeks ago.

It was a gorgeous day at the Zoo and we arrived pretty early to try and beat both the heat and the crowds.  Tourism seems like it’s off a bit around here, because it was a pretty light crowd for what is usually a pretty busy place.  As always, I just loved walking around – watching the animals and have them watch us, too.

Going early is good, because more of the animals are active before they get onto some serious settling down in the heat of the midday and afternoon.

One of the hard parts for me is seeing the great apes.  I mean, I know they are being slaughtered in their homelands in Africa, but the gorillas always seem so sad when I see them.

There was also a lot of munching to be found – camels eating hay and polar bears eating carrots.

As always, the Zoo is a great place to stretch your legs and get to see some of our animal cousins.

What prevents your city/town from being the best place in the country to live?
Submitted by Cherney.

Ummm.... let me think.  Oh, that's right.  Nothing.

Happy Summer

So, this morning I had a surprisingly pleasant little excursion.  I certainly didn’t think it was going to be because the first place was a trip to Discount Tire to repair-replace a tire that had picked up a “foreign object” while I was driving around the other day.  I was afraid that I’d have to replace the tire, or worse both front ones (gotta keep ‘em balanced, right?)  Fortunately, the tires I have are run-flats, so the car could sit in the garage for a couple of days and I could drive it over this morning.

When I arrived, Discount Tire Guy was all "We see this all the time...we'll have you fixed right up..."  so I left my keys and walked over to a nearby Panera for a coffee and a not-so-good-for-me-but-tasty treat and my book.

Forty minutes later they were done and the repair was $ 0.00 (because I'd bought the tires there last year, so repairs are free).  Works for me.

I had a rescheduled piano lesson at 11, and had a little (more) time to kill, so I drove over and hung out at Seagrove Park in Del Mar, sat in the shade and read my book.  I tempted the notoriously fickle Del Mar Parking gods by wagering that 105 minutes in a 90 minute spot would work out ok.  (And it did).

When I got home, Penny was very happy that I was back and we hung out in the back for a while and she tortured herself by watching me eat lunch (she’s a big girl now and only gets fed twice a day).

We sat in the shade of our jacaranda tree and I read and she chewed on her towel.  Later, she decided it was a little cool under the boughs and opted to stretch out and grab some rays.

Not a bad start to the week, I’d say.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days at The Aerie – it was the Beloved’s birthday!  As a treat to herself, she took the day off from work and we decided to spend part of the day using one of her Christmas presents that I had gotten for her – a VIP tour to the Wild Animal Park.

So, after a lovely breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon, we made the 20 minute drive out to the park and met our private guide, Jonathan, who would take us around.   Jonathan was a self-proclaimed “animal nerd” and worked on the education staff for the park.  We had our own private golf-cart and got to go behind-the-scenes in some of the enclosures.  The best was certainly the elephants, where we got to see the caretakers at work and were able to get really close to them – essentially just out of trunk reach.

It was incredibly cool and we were definitely being checked out as much as we were checking out.  What gorgeous graceful creatures.

We also got a tour of their African savannah, which is larger than all of Disney’s California Adventure theme park.  It was a beautiful day and the animals were grazing and hanging out – though the most interesting thing was when they were spooked by mules on a ridge (the park is thinking about incorporating mule rides into the local back country) – many of the animals had never seen a horse or mule (other than a zebra) and weren’t sure what to think.

One that didn’t seem to care was Nova, the northern white rhino – sadly, one of the last of her species.

We were also able to get back to the okapi area and meet one of the females there – this nice girl was pregnant and getting a little exercise.

Our tour finished up with a visit with the animal “ambassadors” – the ones that make it to schools, or fairs, or even TV shows.  We got to see a cheetah being lead into her “crate” for traveling (just like Penny!) and touch a snake and meet Cliff – who surprisingly is not an owl, but a Tawny Frogmouth – a close relative of flycatchers and nightjars.

It was really a great tour and went by in a flash.  I’d been to the WAP several times since moving to San Diego, and worried a bit that ther was nothing new to be learned or enjoyed.

How silly of me.