Walking the beaches and the cliffs around San Diego is one of our favorite activities. Lots of watching: people watching, wave watching, surfer watching, bird watching - where else provides so much free entertainment? And, we get our daily walk in as a bonus. So, needless to say, we have walked along the Pacific a lot these days.
Our first day here we walked the beach at Pacific Beach and enjoyed the sights, though it was quite chilly. One of our favorite sights was this family and, when I took the picture, I was taking a picture of tourists bundled up on the beach saying, ‘Darn it, I came to the beach on vacation, I’m going to enjoy it.’ But, when we saw the picture on our computers another image struck us - note what all 4 of these people are doing on the beach. Are the watching the birds? Are they watching the surfers? Are they watching the ocean? NO, they’re all looking at their phones. Nothing like ‘family togetherness.’ (And look at the squints - is that a mother and daughter?)
But there were people out on the breach enjoying the day as much as we were. This guy is flying his kite but the wind is so gusty that it pulls him about 15’ through the sand every time it hits his kite. Note how he has his feet dug in so he won’t be dragged so far.
Others were strolling the beach just as we were. Then there were the birds who stood where the waves had just receded and then, when the next wave rolled in, skittled as fast as they could towards dry sand. Sure don’t want to get their feet wet. Then they skittled back to where that wave had receded and then, when the next wave rolled in - well, you get the picture. A continuous skittling. Back and forth, back and forth. No wonder they never gain weight. But fun to watch.
Now, as you can tell from the first picture, the weather is less than beach weather. Temps to 60 and gusty. In Iowa, we’d say that the ‘feels like’ temperature is close to 50. We saw lots of people dressed in heavy jackets, hats, jeans - oh, yeah they were all our age. You know: practical, realistic, don’t care what others think. But - did we see young women in skimpy bikinis? You bet - surrounded by guys. They had to be freezing their buns off but were dressed for the kill.
In our first trip to San Diego about 5 years ago we heard that the waves were going to be coming in with some sets to 15’. Not being the wave aficionados as some out here are, we didn’t have a clue what that meant but we’re pretty sure it means that some waves will be in sets of 2 or 3 or more and that they will be 15’ high. Pretty good for an old lady, huh? We decided that we had to be there and check it out. The waves were higher than we have seen here and the surfers were out and so were the crowds - of tourists - just like us. We watched for a while and then decided to walk along the shore.
Hmmm - I don’t think we’ll take these steps down to the beach.
We have walked Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach so we decided to head further north and walk along Sunset Cliffs. Fun walk, mostly on the rocks along the breach, sometimes along the road in the blocked off bike path because the cliffs, as in Sunset Cliffs, are slowly disappearing. Here’s Gary walking along the road. That sign warns of unstable cliffs.
They are mostly hard-packed sand and, over time as they are beaten to death by the waves and winds, they fall into the ocean. We’ve seen so many places where the breach is slowly creeping towards the homes that line its shore. This is just one more instance. There are even signs warning of this.
Here’s our selfie at the bottom of one part of Sunset Cliffs.
When we got back to Ocean Beach, we stopped in at the local coffee house for some coffee and a treat. We chose a peanut butter muffin, not usually my favorite but it had chocolate chips and nuts so - hey, why not. First bite: tender, tasty, just right. Not cloyingly sweet like some muffins can be but more subtle in taste.
Ocean Beach is a pretty laid back part of San Diego - even churches get into the local vibe.
Because Ocean Beach is at the bottom of lots of hills, it floods with rain water during heavy storms - like the one several weeks ago. There are still loads of sand bags lining the streets waiting for the next storm to hit.
Then home. The Iowa caucuses are going strong these days and lots of the news is political. We are Iowa citizens and know how inundated Iowans are now with the political scene: every piece of mail is a candidate ad, every story on TV is political with national reporters standing in front of iconic local scenes and the phone rings off the hook with robocalls from candidates, polling organizations and others. I’ll admit that it gets so tiring - BUT - this is Iowa’s time to shine. There are no mountains in Iowa, no oceans, no large lakes, no National Parks, no Disneyland. We have corn and soybeans, a great farmer’s market, an art festival in the top 10 in America and a financial industry second only to Connecticut (though you never see a candidate or news person standing in front of an insurance office). We don’t have a lot to bring the rest of the world to us - except the caucuses. Every 4 years in January, Iowa is busting at the seams. And, then it ends when the caucuses are over and everyone moves on to New Hampshire and then to the rest of the states. And, Iowans give a big ‘WHEW.’
We’ve spent many hours in caucuses. They were fun sometimes but they were boring also. Sometimes we just sat in a room with others who also favored our candidate waiting for the counters to count heads in each room and declare the winner for that precinct. But, we always thought it our civic duty both to Iowa and to our nation.
Funny - since we still have a cell phone number beginning with 515, which is the central Iowa area code, we still get lots of robocalls. Well, we still get lots of calls from areas that we don’t recognize, from numbers which we don’t recognize and, when we don’t answer, we get no message. We figure that these are the same calls that other Iowas are getting. We just ignore them as my brother is doing. They’ll stop pretty soon.
I hear that pollsters are having a much harder time in the age of cell phones. On the old black phone you’d pick it up thinking it was something important. Now, with cell phones, no one answers if they don’t recognize the caller’s phone number.
‘Nothing keeps you honest more than a bunch of witnesses.’
Anonymous
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