Encinitas Garden Festival

We went off to visit the Encinitas Garden Festival on a sunny Saturday in April. Tickets are ordered well in advance for this one day event. None of the ticket holders know the locations for the gardens that will be visited that year. We jumped in the car and drove to a local college parking lot and were bussed to the chosen neighborhood. Upon arrival we were issued a wrist band and a map and sent on our merry way. We first visited all of the tents and vendors. Then it was off to see the gardens.

Our first stop was this little blue house with the amazing cacti in the front yard. We have a very little cactus like the pale green one in our back yard. Hopefully it will never grow this big!

And a short distance down the road was this giant guy with huge stickers all over it!

We were lead down many a garden path.....

At each stop we would meet up with this lovely dog and his red hat with paw prints on it. He was really the most well behaved creature at the festival. Never said a word, never cut in front of anyone, never got pushy! He just waited patiently for his master to return to the gate and move on to the next garden. 

It was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. The colors of the plats and flowers were outstanding. This was a well established neighborhood and many of these trees and plants were huge. The view under the palm tree was very pretty.

We visited some interesting homes and this was the most beautiful pool we saw. 

This was our favorite bike of the tour. 

And what better way to end the day than to meet up with an old friend at the end of the trail.

Chicago ~ in February

On February 23 I flew to Chicago to be with my friend Annie during and after her knee replacement surgery. After living in California for 15 years, I had forgotten how it feels when the thermometer reads 10º. I flew out of Palm Springs, where the temperature was 60º at 9:30 am, and landed at O'Hare Airport at 3:00 pm where the temperature was 10º. At least the sun was shinning brightly!]

The view from my bedroom window in Chicago

'This beautiful cardinal put on quite a display one morning when I was getting ready to walk to the hospital. Annie lives about 1/2 mile from the hospital so I was able to walk there every morning. It was a pretty good workout for a couch potato - if I didn't walk quickly I was afraid of freezing on the spot! And if I had ever had any thoughts about owning a dog, seeing those poor souls out there every morning, hands frozen to leashes, waiting for Fido to do whatever it is dogs do cured me from ever wanting to be a dog owner.




Annie's hospital stay was suppose to be for 3 or 4 days. Her stay actually lasted 11 days! The surgery went very well and she was able to walk the afternoon of the day of the surgery. However, the rest of her body did not wish to cooperate with the recovery schedule and complications set it. She was one miserable lady for many a day.

February 28 ~ 3 days after surgery

Even with all the issues she had, Annie would get up whenever the PT people  arrived and drag her IV pole around as she practiced walking with her new knee. We finally left the hospital on Sunday, March 8. Bob came to the hospital to drive us home and I could not have been more grateful. The thought of driving through downtown Chicago was very scary. The cats were thrilled to see Annie when she returned home. They tolerated me, probably because I was in charge of the feeding them, but they made it very clear I would never be their best friend!

Lily

Maggie

Terrace after the snow

It snowed a couple of times during my stay in Chicago. It actually snowed quite a bit in the early morning hours on the day of Anne's surgery and continued throughout the day. It was fun to watch from inside and by the time I was ready to go home at night (by cab, of course) it had ended. 

We were pretty much confined to the house for the rest of my visit. We did get out to visit the doctor and we had lunch out and one day it was warm enough to walk around the terrace. Two or three days before I headed for home I looked out on the terrace and the spring flowers were poking their little green leaves through the dirt. 

And people brought yummy stuff to eat ~ Shelly dropped off a whole chicken dinner, including desert, one day. Barbara came with delicious sandwiches, chips and Pellegrino fruit drinks that I am now addicted to. Jon and Cynthia treated us to pizza one night and it was wonderful! Kay and Bob sent a beautiful fruit arrangement that we ate for days. And it was very comforting for me to know that Julia, who lives upstairs, and Bob and Chadwick were always just a phone call away if there was anything we needed. Cynthia and Barbara each brought tulips when they came to visit. Cynthia chose pink ones and Lily really loved those! 

Before Lily discovered how fun it is to chew on tulips

After Lily discovered tulips

And Barbara bought yellow tulips. I took these tulips to my bedroom each night so Lily could not chew on them! And then, of course, I forgot one night and it was all over for the yellow tulips!

Bob and Chadwick brought this lovely little herb garden. It is just so cute!

After three and a half weeks I returned to sunny California. Annie is doing well and the knee is working perfectly. It was an ordeal but I'm sure she is very happy to be without pain in her knee. When I mentioned the left knee she gave me "such a look!" I didn't mention it again. And although it was tough on Annie and worrisome for me, I did so enjoy the time we had together. When you've been friends for 60 years getting together is a wonderful thing! 

Death Valley National Park

We thought it was time for a road trip and wanted to choose somewhere relatively close (about a 5 hour drive), warm, and where we had never been before. Death Valley won the lottery and we headed out early one morning on our way to Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park. Our first stop, the afternoon we arrived, was the ranger station. He gave us a map and pointed us on our way to visit this most amazing place. I expected a vast desert with 20 mule trains bringing out the Borax and was wonderfully surprised by the landscape that went from almost 300 feet below sea level to 5000 feet in the mountain passes. We had enough time before dark for one stop on the map.

SALT CREEK TRAIL

We did not expect to see a flowing stream on the floor of the desert but there it was! In this stream lives the endangered Pupfish. The ranger told us to look closely because they wouldn't be around much longer. They are only about an inch long and unfortunately we didn't see any. But the area was beautiful.

As we walked along the boardwalk the sun gave us the shadows of these long legged creatures.  As the sun went down we headed to the Furnace Creek Ranch for a bite to eat and our bed.

Day 2

BADWATTER BASIN

This vast basin is 282 feet below sea level. It is so named because the water that makes it to the surface here is very salty. Walking across the basin is like walking across a spilled box of Morton's! At one point I asked Bob to see if it was really salt - thus the demonstration below:

Is it really salt?

Yes it is!

Our next stop on the tour was The Natural Bridge. After a very bumpy drive on a dirt road, we hiked into the hills and came upon this beautiful natural bridge. It was in the 80s and very dry, of course, but an absolutely beautiful day. 

After the Natural bridge was the Artists Drive. This is a paved loop through a varying landscape of color. I had never seen green rocks before so this was one of my favorite parts of the trip,

After leaving The Artists Drive we headed for Scotty's Castle. Scotty was a fellow who sold shares to a gold mine that didn't exist and according to the stories was befriended by a wealthy Chicago man who continued to support Scotty for the rest of his life. The very rich Chicago man wanted a house built in the dessert and thus, in the middle of nowhere, Scotty's Castle came to be. We had a one hour tour with a park ranger dressed in 1930s garb. 

This coyote seemed to belong to the castle. The ranger told us that if you stop your car they will walk up to the driver's side window and wait for food. He also said they bring their young to the roads and teach them how to beg. He was the healthiest coyote I have ever seen.

SCOTTY'S CASTLE

After the castle we headed back to Furnace Creek Ranch for dinner and our bed. We were also surprised at the number of people visiting the park. I guess we shouldn't have been as winter is the only time the temperatures are under 100º.  The next day we packed up the car and headed for home. We made a stop at the Harmony Borax Works for a look at what was left.

 This Borax mining operation was in operation for only a few years in the late 1800s. Again, the vastness of the area is almost overwhelming.







HARMONY BORAX WORKS

MESQUITE DUNES

After the borax works we headed for the Mesquite Dunes. These dunes were beautiful. There were people walking on them but we chose not to do that. This is one of the ever changing landscapes we were treated to as we traveled through this park.

As we were coming to the end of the park we passed through the tiny town of Stovepipe Wells, Padre Crowley Point, at almost 5000 feet (and very windy and cold) down again to Lake Hill and out of the park at Owens Lake and the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Range. Amazing beauty almost every where we looked.

Down the hill toward Lake Hill

                                         Lake Hill

     Owens Lake and the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. 

Bodie - A Ghost Town

A Day at the San Diego Zoo

We decided it was time to re-visit the San Diego Zoo. A good idea but we forgot that it was summer and the Zoo would be full of visitors from all over the world. We heard many different languages lots of kids. They ranged from little ones sleeping their way through the zoo in strollers to teenagers who would soooo obviously rather be somewhere else. There were grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, aunts and uncles and I'm sure just a few very good friends! And then there was the four of us wandering through the zoo with no kids wondering why we did this in August? San Diego was in the 80s and quite humid. It wasn't so pleasant. Living where we do, about 60 miles east of the coast, we have very low humidity. If we have 30% humidity, we all walk around complaining how humid it is. When I think back to the years I spend in New Jersey where we would have bouts of humidity in the 90% range I almost feel guilty about complaining about 30%. But we had fun looking at the animals and we had a nice lunch at Albert's Restaurant at the zoo. It is named after the first gorilla they had, I think. But I might be wrong on that. I will have to do some research.

I call these three "The Big Guys!"

We saw some birds

And of course there were Monkeys!