San Diego between the storms
January between rainstorms was a lovely time to visit the San Diego area.
Though this trip didn’t turn out quite as we’d imagined,
we had fun exploring some of the less-visited sites.
To fly or not to fly?
Private pilots like to say that if you absolutely must get somewhere by a certain time, your best bet is to fly commercial. Small planes are subject to the unpredictable whims of weather, from wind, clouds and rain, to ground fog and turbulence. And the defining feature of weather is that it changes — from day to day, hour to hour, and sometimes minute to minute — which makes it difficult to formulate a reliable plan. All too often when Craig hopes to go up for an early morning flight, he’ll wake in the wee hours to re-check the weather, only to find that everything has changed since he went to bed: flight canceled.
What’s more, the farther you want to go, the greater the chances that some spot along your route will suddenly prove too dangerous to navigate in a small plane. Fortunately, today’s weather information systems provide an astonishing amount of data to help a pilot determine whether or not it’s safe to fly. (I find it hard to imagine how pilots managed to fly safely in the decades before they had all this data at their fingertips!)
In October, we were planning a flying trip to Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico via Death Valley (great trip, right?), but when the day came, the weather had turned, making travel iffy. Something I love about Craig is that he is not afflicted with “get-there-itis,” the compulsion to travel under questionable circumstances that has been the downfall of too many private pilots. Craig always prefers to wait out the weather, rather than flying under possibly dangerous conditions. Bless him for that.
Anyway, we canceled the trip. In early November, though, we were able to pare down our original itinerary and fly out to Las Cruces, where we rented a car and spent a few days touring southern New Mexico. Even so, I ended up flying home on Southwest, while Craig waited out the weather for a couple more days before bringing his plane home.
In January, we started talking about flying down to San Diego, a short hop to a city neither Craig nor I had ever visited. But as our departure date loomed, the metrics for turbulence began to suggest trouble — even though the weather on both ends looked sunny and beautiful. So what did we do? We found a great deal on a rental car at the Oakland Airport, and we drove down. Driving takes longer — obviously — but by breaking our trip each way into two segments, the long drives became less onerous.
King of the Missions
We arrived in Oceanside, some forty miles north of San Diego, on a Saturday morning and in time for a great breakfast on the patio of Don’s Country Kitchen (thanks, Yelp!). Fortified, we headed inland to our first stop, the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia — nicknamed “King of the Missions.” I picked this place for two reasons: first, our friend Rosalie, who used to live in San Diego, had told us it was her favorite mission. Second, the many “Visit San Diego” sites I’d consulted before our trip all stressed how very crowded the favorite tourist spots usually were. I figured a mission was probably not top of many visitors’ must-see lists, so it might be a safe choice for a Saturday.
And so it proved. It was a beautiful day and a lovely spot with few tourists. We wandered through the small museum and the large cemetery, lit a memorial candle in the church, and then settled in for a drink on the patio of the tiny café.
Overnight in Escondido
After checking into our motel, we headed to Bellamy’s in Escondido to join our friend John for dinner. At 95, John is as engaging and impishly witty as ever, and it was great to catch up with him.
After dinner, Craig and I headed back to the Escondido Inn. Though the listing had made it sound much like any other generic motel, the reviews for this place were surprisingly enthusiastic, so we decided to give it a try.
Our first hint that this motel was something out of the ordinary was the colorful mural behind the reception desk. The lemon-yellow doors to all the rooms offered a second clue. And then we opened the door to our room… Wow. Hand-painted ceilings, quirky, mismatched furnishings, and the most elaborate shower apparatus we’d ever seen. It looked as if someone had scoured Overstocks.com for the best deals, with little regard to how the pieces went together — and yet the odd assemblage made for an eclectic but pleasing decor. Upon inquiry, we learned from the desk clerk that his “boss” had done all the decorative painting. With the whole experience rounded out by a fabulous shower and a comfy bed, this is definitely a place to stay again, should we return to the area.
Down to the shore
As I mentioned, all the San Diego experts I consulted warned of overcrowding at the area’s most popular sites — and so it proved. We set out Sunday morning for Torrey Pines State Natural Preserve, hoping for a hike and good look at these rare trees. But we weren’t the only ones who had that idea on a bright Sunday. As we waited in line at the park entrance, we saw dozens of visitors climbing the hill to the trailhead. Hiking a crowded trail to a crowded beach is not our idea of a good time, so we turned around at the gate to seek a less-traveled way down to the shore.
A few miles south, we found a steep descent to Black’s Beach, which, I gather, is renowned mainly for its clothing-optional policy. It wasn’t a big beach, especially at high tide, but our scramble down the cliff was rewarded by lovely views of the shoreline and a chance to watch surfers tackling the waves.
The jewel of the coast
La Jolla is a lovely little upscale town north of San Diego, and we decided to spend the night there. We had two goals: to walk along the coast and to watch the NFL conference finals. We splurged on a room at the Pantai Inn, a lovely hotel with a Balinese theme just across from the shoreline trail — very convenient and comfortable. We found a popular — and crowded — sports bar, The Spot, where we had a drink and watched the Chiefs and, more importantly, the Forty-Niners prevail. Afterwards, we wandered back to our hotel to read, relax and watch the glorious sunset (see also the photo at top).
In the morning, we found a breakfast place with an outdoor patio, then wandered as far as we could along the coastal path. We were tickled to come upon a colony of brown pelicans in their colorful breeding plumage hanging out on the clifftops only a few feet from our trail.We see these birds often at home, but it’s rare that we get such a close-up view. And because they don’t breed in our area, we don’t usually see the pelicans in their bright colors. In fact, the only other time I’ve seen them was during our birding trip to the Gulf Coast of Texas last year.
A hit and a miss
Monday afternoon we decided to visit Cabrillo National Monument, named for Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who led the first Spanish expedition up the coast of California from Mexico.
The Cabrillo expedition sailed out of the port of Navidad, near modern day Manzanillo, on June 27, 1542 with three ships… One hundred and three days into the journey, Cabrillo’s ships entered San Diego Bay… Cabrillo described the bay as “a closed and very good port,” which he called San Miguel. The name San Miguel was changed to San Diego 60 years later by another explorer, Sebastian Vizcaino… The expedition continued north to Monterey Bay and may have reached as far north as Point Reyes before storms forced the ships to turn back… Discouraged by foul weather, Cabrillo decided to winter in the Channel Islands. There, [in] a fall suffered during a brief skirmish with an Indigenous tribe, Cabrillo shattered a limb and died of complications on January 3, 1543… While Cabrillo’s contemporaries considered the expedition a failure, it left behind our first written glimpse of the west coast of North America from a newcomer’s perspective. (National Park Service: Cabrillo National Monument website)
Craig and I love national park visitor centers and especially their introductory videos, so we spent a happy hour watching several of the available videos, puttering around the museum, and looking out over the bay toward central San Diego.
What interested me most, though, were the tide pools, which I’d read were “one of the best protected rocky intertidal areas in California.” The NPS site claims that the winter months are the best time to visit, because the low tides usually happen during visiting hours. Not so while we were there, alas!
On the day we visited, low tides took place at 4:35 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. Since the park closes at five o’clock, and the rangers hustle you out of the tide pool zone half an hour before that, the tide pools were mostly underwater when we made our way down there in the late afternoon. Still, this section of the coastal cliffs is beautiful in the golden afternoon light, and we enjoyed our stroll along the cliff trail. With luck, we’ll get to check out the tide pool denizens on another visit.
Dodging the storms
We had dinner at one of the many Mexican restaurants in San Diego’s Old Town, sipping quite respectable margaritas and contemplating our next move. We had planned to stay in the area a little longer and still had a long list of more obvious places to visit — Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, to name but two. But the “atmospheric river” that had passed through a week or so before our visit had brought heavy flooding, and another series of similar storms was forecast to hit California in a couple of days.
Daunted by the thought of having to drive for hours through heavy rain, we decided on the prudent course of heading home that night. So after dinner we skedaddled, again stopping overnight in Santa Clarita, and arriving back in Alameda the following afternoon, well before the storm hit. In hindsight, staying another day would not have been an problem; still, we were glad to be home and happy to think of visiting again sometime soon — in Craig’s plane this time, if we’re lucky!
It’s so easy to get caught up in our expectations — those imagined scenarios of how some future thing will or ought to be — and to be disappointed when things don’t turn out as we predict. So here’s to the pivot: May we have the flexibility to change course when circumstances necessitate and the resilience to enjoy ourselves, even when our plans fall apart!
Connections
- Don’s Country Kitchen (great breakfast place in Oceanside)
- Wikipedia: Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
- Bellamy’s Restaurant (Escondido)
- Escondido Inn
- Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
- Black’s Beach
- Wikipedia: La Jolla
- Pantai Inn (Balinese-themed hotel in La Jolla)
- The Spot (sports bar in La Jolla)
- All About Birds: Brown Pelican
- National Park Service: Cabrillo National Monument
You might also like…
- Birding the Gulf Coast
- Coming soon: November in New Mexico