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Ok, pals, I'm in my home town, more or less. Actually I'm staying in Oceanside, on the Marine base, but I grew up in Pt. Loma.

Today we went to the beach, where I took off my Tevas and socks and walked barefoot in the sand. Water temp 58, air 52. LOTS of surfers out there today, as the surf is up pretty high right now. I saw more female surfers this time than usual. Go girl surfers!!

It's nice to be home, where no one will look at you funny for wearing Tevas with socks, nor anything else you might want to wear, or not wear.

A woman about my age or older had rented a surfboard and was on the beach, sort of struggling with it. I went over to talk to her. She said she had rented a boogie board the day before, but today she was going out with the big guys. She got about 20 feet out there with that big heavy foam tourist board, and gave up. I went back to try to explain how to get out past the breakers with the board, but I realized she was pretty clueless about dealing with the surf. And the surf was way too big for a grommet (newbie), anyway. Then she told me she was going to try body surfing. She had no fins, so I figured that was not going to happen. She didn't seem to have a clue about it anyway. I felt badly I couldn't help her a little more, but I had no wetsuit, it was cold, there was the problem of no fins, etc. It just wasn't the day for it. Besides, you don't body surf with the board surfers. I have tried to teach people to body surf before, but if they have not swum in surf before, they need to first get comfortable with that function. You have to be comfortable with diving under the waves, etc.

I had my first surf air mattress (a short, durable air mattress made for little kids to catch waves) when I was about 7, and could catch waves like crazy with that thing. That was before boogie boards were invented.

After lunch, my younger son, (the one who's not a Marine), and I rode our bikes off the base and onto the bike path that runs from Oceanside to Fallbrook along the San Luis Rey River. We rode about 12 miles. It was a pain in the neck getting back on base, since the MPs wouldn't let us through the gate we had come out of, so we had to ride up to the main gate through a whole bunch of traffic, and then my son didn't have a helmet, so he had to walk his bike once we got back onto the base. The MP at the gate said, sternly, "If we catch you riding without a helmet, we'll throw you off the base!" Yeah, riding without a helmet--that would be a real breach of Homeland Security, now wouldn't it?

I really enjoy all the plants out here on the coast. More on plants later. Saw some neat birds, too: Pelicans, especially.
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I spent the summer of 89 in Carlsbad. Ventured to Oceanside a couple times. The traffic back then was so bad you could barely get there being a single lane each way. I talked to a guy about five years ago that said there's a train or something that goes up the coast and that they've improved the roads. Then again I'm not 19 anymore, so there's no reason to go to that town

During the summer, we often "camp" at South Carlsbad SB or San Elijo SB. More the preference of my girlfriend's family than my personal preference, but I always have a good time anyway. I get addicted to boogie boarding every time!

Yeah, boogie boarding is really fun. I actually have not been here in summer since 2001, which was the last time I went boogie boarding.

I doubt summer traffic at the beach has improved much. Oceanside has improved since I was a kid, though. It is a lot nicer, but still has a lot of the old cottages and still has the old beach town feel, which some of the other towns have lost. Del Mar in particular is pretty much a place for millionaires.

I really enjoy all the plants out here on the coast. More on plants later

Check out Balboa Park (if you havent been there already..) The gardens there are amazing!!! I could spend days wandering through the ancient looking forests and exploring all the nooks and crannies of the place..

I like Balboa Park, but my favorite thing is to go hiking out in the oak and chaparral country. Although this biozone resembles the similar zone in Arizona, it is not exactly the same. The geology and soils are different, and there are a few different plants as well. It's where I started hiking when I was a kid, so it brings back a lot of memories. Lots of big boulders, manzanita, mtn. buckwheat, ceanothus, laurel sumac, live oaks, etc. There are some plants that give the chaparral its characteristic smell after a rain, also. I took a class years on Natural History of San Diego County, but have forgotten some of the info.

Tuesday blog: I went mountain biking with my two sons on the Marine base. Camp Pendleton is like California before the developers. It is one of the last places where the coastal sage scrub biozone exists in large amounts. We rode a dirt road up along the Santa Margarita River (which is more or less dry right now.) It is really pretty along there. Lots of trees in the riverbed, and the steep hills covered with chaparral and no houses. We rode up as far as we were allowed to then turned around and rode back down to the sea. We rode along the estuary where the river meets the ocean, and under the I-5 bridge, and out along a tomato field, which is on the bluff overlooking the beach. We were still on a dirt road! Since there had been a storm in the morning and it was still breezy, the ocean was very rough, with big waves and white caps. My camera battery died right about then.

I sort of hit the wall on the way back. I'd been having trouble with the disc brake on my rear wheel dragging a bit, so I was expending a lot of energy trying to keep up with my boys. Jeff had a tool kit and tried to fix it for me, but it kept dragging, and then the front one also started squeaking occasionally. Sometimes I hate disc brakes--they are SO finicky!! Also, I began to think later on, maybe I'm coming down with something, so that is why I got so tired out. I don't feel all that good. I took some Airborn, although am not sure how much it will help.

Today we are going out to the rural area north of Escondido called Valley Center where I used to go with my folks for picnics and short hikes when I was a kid. I wonder how much it has gotten developed. On Google earth it doesn't look too bad. There is a county park there, also, that we might visit, plus Bates Brothers Nut Farm.

azbackpackr wrote:Camp Pendleton is like California before the developers.

I wish I could go there!

The Old Oak Tree

I sort of got busy and didn't finish this. On Wednesday, I think it was, we went to Valley Center, a small rural community about 15 miles north of Escondido. When I was growing up my family used to picnic at a certain old oak tree near the Valley Center school. There was a picnic table and a swingset and a stone barbecue. I wanted to find that place, but I had been warned by my brother that it is all different now. Before, there was chaparral brush, no grass, long views of ranchlands and Palomar Mtn. and the little country school nearby. Now, all that has been altered.

We found the school on Cole Grade Rd. There was a driveway right about where I thought there should be one to get to the oak tree. But now there is a swimming pool, several tennis courts, a big paved parking lot, restrooms, lawns, lots of planted non-native trees, and the school district administrative offices, all on the side of that hill, and the school bus yard at the bottom of the hill. I almost despaired of finding the old oak tree. I hiked all over that hill, and I finally did find it, still with a picnic table under it, and the old stone barbecue nearby! That old tree and the barbecue are the only things left that I remember. We have family movies of me when I was about 3 at that place (54 years ago). But that old tree looks healthy, despite being crowded by pepper trees, and pines, and other trees that have been planted. Under the oak tree are boulders with Indian grinding holes in them where the Indians used to grind the acorns hundreds of years ago.

My son climbed up high in the tree, and the rest of the family trickled over to the area, and we set up our picnic on the table with crackers and sausage and cheese, just like my mom would have done so many years ago.

I remember my dad would lie on a blanket under the tree, in its shade, and read a book. And he would stare up at the sky, and tell me, "I'm making the clouds disappear." He would tell me that if you pick a very small cloud and you stare at it and concentrate, it will disappear! I would try it and by golly, he was right!

We always had a great big car with a huge trunk in those days--a Caddy or a Buick, and my mother would put all the picnic things and the picnic blanket in the trunk. And we would take off and go out of the city and up to the mountains. We did this often, sometimes every weekend. We had other favorite places to go, but the old oak tree was always special.

I am very glad I got to share this place with my family. We had a very pleasant time at the old oak tree. Here are some photos: http://hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=9713