Anza Borrego Camping Trip

Over Easter weekend, Pat and I headed off to Anza Borrego State Park, which is the largest state park outside of the state of Alaska. It also happens to be the desert. When we arrived, we were very lucky to get the last tent site in the campground.

Since it was very windy, we decided not to set up our tent but to do some hiking right away. This sign greeted us at the trail head along with a disclaimer that "people have died of dehydration on this trail." We thought that was unlikely, since the entire trail was only 1.5 miles long!

It did look pretty dry though!

Despite the "dangers" we headed off.

After a mile and a half, we came to Lost Palms Oasis. It was very beautiful but there were about 100 people there, which made it less appealing.


It was shady and cool beneath the palms. Right after this picture was taken, Pat disturbed a rattlesnake, and it gave him a scary warning. I do have a picture but I don't have it with me. I will try to post it later.

We then left the maintained trail (and all those pesky people) behind and followed the creek along a series of small waterfalls.

Here is the view back down the canyon.


We kept coming upon more and more oases, as we went. They were lusher than I expected.

I always forget to get pictures of myself. So, here is one.


We rounded a bend and could see Mount Baldy far off in the distance.

More palm trees.



When we got back to our campsite, the wind was still howling. I had to cook dinner in the back of the car. Luckily, I am an old pro at this.

In the meantime, Pat had a heck of a time setting up the tent. Eventually, I went over to give him a hand. Once erected, the tent was a champ. It didn't blow around at all unlike several of our neighbors'.

One final story about this weekend (without pictures):

We got up early Sunday morning and were tickled to see that the Easter Bunny had visited the campside beside us, bringing two young girls huge baskets and stuffed animals. As I made some coffee, I heard someone come traipsing noisily through our campsite. Instinctively, I turned to see who/what it was. You can imagine my surprise when I saw a stout, younger guy (perhaps 20ish) in a red flannel shirt march by with a shotgun slung over one shoulder. Guess what was in his other hand? Yep, pretty obvious. A dead bunny rabbit. The guy shot the Easter Bunny! The woman next door looked at me and mouthed "is that legal?" I said "NO." She went to get the rangers while I watched to see where the guy was headed. About 45 minutes later, the rangers escorted him out of the park.

Balboa Island & Dana Point

The day after my mom and I went to San Diego, we headed back down the coast to Newport Beach to do another Volksmarch, this one on Balboa Island and Peninsula.

First, we walked over a bridge onto Balboa Island. Each house had a dock (usually with a nice boat) out front. I took this picture of mom on the "public dock," the only one that riffraff like us are allowed on!

And one lovely house had a dinosaur out front.

Then we took a ferry (for $1 each) across to Balboa Peninsula.

The ferry could hold three cars at a time.

We also did a Volksmarch in Dana Point which is another beautiful area. First, we walked to an overlook of the harbour.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day.

The houses were stunning and the lawns manicured.


Eventually, we walked right on down to the ocean where we stopped for a rest before hiking the whole way back up to our car!

San Diego with Mom

When my mom visited last weekend, we went down to San Diego for the day. Boy, do I like that city. The weather was perfect. Of course, we did a 10k Volksmarch which started along the waterfront, went through Balboa park, past Petco park, through the convention center and back past the USS Midway. Here are the sights:

First, we went past the Star of India, the world's oldest active ship.

Here is a view of the city.

All along the waterfront are cool, cleverly named sculptures. This one was called Signs of Life (or something along those lines).

We saw some lawn bowlers in Balboa Park. I never had heard of this game until I moved to Long Beach, and I think of it as "Bocce for the snotty set."

We thought this was an old mission but it turned out to be the Museum of Man.

After a re-energizing lunch, we toured the USS Midway, a retired aircraft carrier. It was so cool--I can't imagine landing an F-16 on one of these things. It must take nerves of steel!

After poking around a bit on our own, we took a guided tour of "the island" which is where operations are carried out during maneuvers.

Headsets were included in the tour but mine just irritated me so I didn't really end of listening to much of the info.



This statue is right beside the Midway. It commemorates a famous WW II photo of a sailor kissing a nurse on VJ Day.