February 9, 2019

February 9, 2019

My sister has been in town for the last week. We spent the time visiting the annual Gem show and seeing a couple of good movies including Green Book and Free Solo.

We are running out of things to to with them so we decide to take a drive west to the coast along I-8. It is a drive of extremes. We alternate between Arizona desert and fertile well-irrigated farms. Looming water restrictions from the Colorado River don’t look good for these agricultural fields. Mother Nature is ready to reclaim them. Once past Yuma and the dried up Colorado we hit the Imperial Sand Dunes which could easily stand in for the Sahara. Eventually we reach and climb the coastal mountain range. The leading edge consists of millions of Jumbo boulders, like a giant piled his rocks here. At the summit we make a stop at the Desert View Tower overlook. It is quite breezy. No wonder there were dozens of windmills at the footstep of the mountain.

Eventually we hit the ocean at La Jolla. We stop at the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve to stretch our legs after the long drive. Like everything Californian it is pricey and crowded. This heavily eroded coastline is home to this rare namesake coastal pine.

Afterwards we drive by the downtown harbor front of San Diego where we spot the carrier USS Midway, for a long time the largest ship in the world. We are too late to tour this museum ship so we settle for a photo of Unconditional Surrender, an enormous colorful rendition of the iconic photograph celebrating the end of WWII. My relatives are hungry so we stop for seafood in Old Town San Diego.